More often than not, when I’m trying to write, the words are slow to flow from thoughts down into my fingertips. It takes effort to mentally get to a place where I can push everything else away and be there. In a world I’ve made, with a character I built a life for, establishing the finer details.

Then there are days when I can’t get there at all. My mind gets stuck. I equate being able to fabricate my own fictitious worlds with my mental health issues. It’s diet psychosis. Disassociation on expert; as I continue giving voice and personality and nuance to things that I know are not real. Will never be real.

Before, when I wrote as a child, teenager, and young adult, I did so because I wanted to escape my life. I needed those stories to be as real and detailed as possible. Relying on them for my own sanity made it easier to write at the time. Writing was the only break I had back then.

At times, I hate that I’m good writer. Not as good as I’d like to be, but well enough to be remarked as such by the few people I’ve let read my pieces.

My strengths as a writer were built from years of survival escapism. My writing voice is a product of rehearsing interactions to ensure the best outcome. My fully formed characters and attention to detail are consequences of anxious hyper awareness. I love writing, I attribute it as one of the reasons I’m still here. I hate the realization that any talent I have as a writer, rests on a foundation of trauma.

August is not off to a great start… I opened my laptop to write last night and life decided to strike. Had to find a plumber to fix a leak in our newly renovated bathroom, and still need to track down a contractor to fix the ceiling and wall that were damaged from it.

Good news, I’ve kept up a writing streak for 18 days. There were ranges in the word count throughout July. Lowest day was only 43 words (and I beat myself up after every single one). Best day 1,332. I started four different chapters in July, and finished one.

My Camp NaNo motivation dried up during the last week when I was on holidays. I wanted to read Heaven Official’s Blessing book three, and I always end up cleaning when I’m left to my own devices.

When I get around 700-800 words in a writing session, my focus evaporates. I have a hard time coming up with sentences that don’t contain words that I’ve already used. I’m going to try hitting 500 words a day for August, and see how that goes.

I refuse to let me dissuade myself from finishing this book. No matter how enticing the story ideas I come up with sound.

I’ve started a notebook to keep track of ideas I have for other stories. Brief synapse, type of character, rough plotline… If I don’t write them down I have anxiety that I’m going to forget about them and cannot focus on what I’m actually supposed to be working on. If I do write them down, I want to be detailed so when I have time to revisit the concept, I’ll remember what I was thinking about.

Yesterday I noted, “Fern Gully, but adult horror, and gay. No fairies.”

Changing the main character has had little effect on the direction I’m taking the story. In May and June I took time to review and revise my plot. Take a refreshing overall look at my characters, individual storylines, and larger narrative. I started July confidently committed to writing five chapters or 25,000 words for Camp NaNo.

Then I threw all of my revisions, carefully re-constructed outline, and point of view annotations to the side!

After demoting a character from MC to love interest, and determining how to adjust existing chapters to different points of view… Everything I’ve written so far this month has been from the perspective of the former MC.

I’ve been struggling with writing a difficult scene this week (started this entry June 12…). It involves five characters in a small room:

• one near death (unconscious and unaware)
• two leading the situation (antagonist and his minion)
• two that are being pitted against one another by the instigators (both healers of little notoriety, one of which is a main character in the story)

They are there to heal the near dead person, but doing so will kill one of the healers. They are being forced to do this, and the decision of who dies is up to them.

I find it strange when people around me insist that I take time to myself. Read. Write. Nap. Crochet. My husband especially will corral anyone that could interrupt me so I won’t be disturbed. If I’m writing later in the evening, he’ll tell me good night and to stay up as late as I want.

Very curious reactions that I’m not used to.

Pretty much everyone that I shared my writing with joked about or made fun of it, or shared the details out of context, so I stopped showing it to people. A couple years later, in high school, my writing nearly got me expelled. “Violent content” was what got me in trouble, and since I’d written the script for the film group I founded, it was me, or the club.

Every day is a blank page. An opportunity. A story, about a day in your life, waiting to be written.

Or some such bull shit.

Looking ahead at the treacherous path I’ve put myself on by trying to write this book, I am beginning to realize that I need some personal motivation to help keep me focused.

My outline is very close to being finished, and I’ve begun writing a couple scenes / chapters in it already. Since changing my main character from Quentin to Ulliel, I’ve oscillated the point of view for several chapters near the beginning of the book. The number of times I’ve changed the character perspective for only Chapter 2 is laughable (and sad).

The back and forth is frustrating, and I’ve been spending times designing emblems for the different courts, and researching how to make maps for fictional places… There is still so much to do, and I am isolated on this journey.

Sometimes it feels like the mental blocks I encounter are endless repeats caused from a looping journey on a short road. As soon as I navigate my way around one, long enough to get some writing done, it circles around once again with the same intensity as before.

The effort of self-coaching, mindfulness, positive self-talk, consciously pushing away intrusive negativity with rational explanations, and reminding myself of my accomplishments (when my own brain tries to convince me that I am incompetent) is exhausting!

While editing my rough draft (and researching how best to approach the editing for my rough draft), I’ve been overtaken by the urge to plot! I am a plotter, I always have been, but it is quite time consuming. I’ve outlined 25 chapters so far, and pushed another 15 off to the side while I figure out the ordering.

Over the years, when people talk about plotters / planners, I’ve heard a lot of negative opinions. Outlining isn’t writing. Planners obsess over details and never finish. Those kinds of comments weigh on my mind while I’m adjusting my plot structure, and the pressure dulls my concentration. I end up feeling too guilty to continue most of the time.

Recently, I heard another take on plotters. Planning is the architect laying the foundation. You can’t build a house without framing. I find I enjoy referring to myself as The Architect.