One Glorious Month

Somehow an entire month has passed since I started (well, re-started) this project.  It was a little terrifying to commit to finishing it publicly but I haven’t regretted it.  Now as I’m working away at revamping Chapter Six I want to take a little time to reflect on how this month has gone and where I stand moving forward.

In my very first post I explained all the reasons I haven’t finished TEORG already.  The gist of it is that in the past I’ve come at it far too intensely.  The pace has been untenable and the slightest disruption to my break-neck all-or-nothing routine has capsized the project again and again.  When I talked about literally running out of time to do simple things like bathe I wasn’t kidding.

I meant it when I said I didn’t want to live that way this time around.

So far I’ve been incredibly successful!  I have a routine, sure, but its not nearly as rigorous as its been in the past.  I come home from work and spend one or two hours revising and rewriting.

Then I go to bed!

In the morning I repeat with a cup or two of coffee.  I don’t work until the afternoons, so theoretically I could put in four hours sometimes, but I don’t. I can’t!  Life has too many other obligations.  There are chores to be done, groceries to be purchased, cats to play with and even television to watch.  Somehow I’ve miraculously discovered a balance that was unfortunately absent in my past attempts to finish this project.

Perhaps the most incredible thing about this last month is that I’ve even been able to devote a little time to other creative outlets.  I’ve rediscovered my love of making homemade pastas, cranking out pounds of yellow pepper, beet and kale varieties.  And my Facebook friends have likely seen images of the six pounds of cheese I’ve produced since the beginning of September.  That has been a great pleasure which I will be writing about once the cheeses have matured enough to eat.

By all accounts I’m doing a marvelous job of preventing TEORG from eclipsing my real life.

But its still there—in a big way.

I think most writers probably live in two separate worlds—reality and whatever story they’re crafting.  I know I certainly do.  I think in the end very little writing is actually done in front of a keyboard—most of it occurs during the lapses of other activities or when engaged in mundane tasks.  I think I probably craft my best sentences when I’m riding my bike or washing dishes.  See, for me at least, this story is always there, just under the surface.  A momentary lull in my real life is an opportunity to think about Ryan and where he’s going.

My husband knows this as well.  Ever my foil (in the best ways) he’s been there time and again to keep me from going too far down the old familiar rabbit hole.  I really couldn’t be more thankful.

So moving forward I’m going to try not to change a thing!  I’ll keep this pace and its going to be marvelous!  Chapter Six will post on Friday and Chapter Seven the week after.  I’ll probably take a week hiatus at that point to do some reading ahead (more on that later) and then jump right into my revision of Chapter Eight before the month ends.

By December I’ll finally be working on completely new chapters.  Hopefully by the time the crocuses bloom I’ll be bringing this thing in for a landing—

Finally, I am so thankful that you are reading this.  The initial momentum of this website has slowed, which is to be expected, but still at the time of this writing gregoryjosephs.com has seen 700 views and 200 unique visitors.  A whopping 82 people have read (at least part of) the first Chapter, and 40 have come back for Chapter Two and beyond.  Those numbers might not seem huge, but they’re enormous to me.  In the world of 140 characters or less it takes real commitment to read a 5000+ word chapter on a Friday afternoon or a Sunday morning.  Thank you a million times over for the support.

I’m forging ahead.  Are you still with me?