Body strong! Mind weak!

[elfs]

Sunday night I left the house at about the time I'd normally be going to bed to sit up with an old friend who was having a hard time. Got home around two in the morning, slept poorly, took a day off from work on Monday. It's Wednesday now am I'm still not put to right. Monday night I slept equally poorly, and last night I piled some generic diphenhydramine into my system in the hopes of getting a full night's sleep. I did, but today I'm enjoying the hangover that always comes from pounding my circadian clock into submission.

I also suppose I've got a bit of writer's block. I haven't wanted to write for the past couple of days. Pixel-stained Technopeasant day took a lot of wind out of my sails: the small scale of my readership, the relative effort I put into it all, the sheer talent of those others who posted (and I've downloaded quite a few for my reading pleasure), and general life stress have all combined to knock out the writing mojo for a few days.

It'll come back. It always does. I could no more not want to mess with Zia and Polly's heads than I could want to stop breathing. What I need to figure out is how to market the damn stuff.

I'm gonna head to the gym for lunch. I'll do two low-intensity circuits just to try and get back into the groove. I did that last week, twice, and felt better after each ocassion. I no longer come back from the gym dizzy; I guess my body's gotten used to the sudden ratcheting of effort. And my heartbeat's finally down where it belongs for a high-output workout, which is reassuring after it was way too high over the winter.

Comments

I don't know about anyone else, but...

[(Anonymous)]

I've been craving an RPG setting based on the Journal Entries for quite a while.

[(Anonymous)]

Personally, I would be glad to pay (and I have).

I don't come here because its free, but because its good.

I have no marketing wisdom to offer, however it might just be a question of how to hook fans. I was an alt.sex.stories reader many years ago (before it all degenerated into spam) and although I frequently saw your postings, they never really caught my attention until the Travellogue stories. Those stories more than anything else made me want to read the rest and I have been a fan ever since.

Don't give up! Do what you love!

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

So why do you really write after all? Is it because you love to write? Do you like your characters? Do you want to make money?

Figure out the aspects you like most and focus on those. Don't worry about the rest.

You seem to go back and forth with this. Frankly I don't know why you feel so inadequate. Amount of sales has never been a good measure of the quality of a writer. I haven't read very much but I enjoy your writing style. You have a refreshing turn of phrase, your characters are very real, and your stories have a nice flow.

I read the Bloody Beth series. Naturally I skipped that icky girly sex stuff, but if I didn't know better I could have sworn you'd once sailed a tall ship. Well written.

I read some of the Aimee series. It got a bit too weird for me, but I really cared about the characters before the second installment even. Part of me still wants to go back and find out what happened to them.

Night in Thundera. OK, you're going to Hell for that one. I guess you're right, you're a lousy writer and there's no redemption for you.

Seriously though, you're a damn good writer. It's silly to compare yourself with those who aren't even doing the same sort of stuff as you.

[pteryxx.livejournal.com]

Like lisakit says, why write? It's common knowledge that the odds of a given person becoming a full-time, professional, self-supporting household-name writer are roughly the same as getting hit by lightning while in bed with a supermodel. If we're not going to measure success by whether one's a pro or not, then why bother measuring it in terms of number of fans, pages produced, or caliber of style versus some other guy?

We also know that we're never going to become professional athletes, but that doesn't stop us from enjoying our softball or soccer or flag football leagues. I played ice hockey during college while learning to skate, but I still had a great time and made a name for myself as one of the best damn beer-league goalies in my neck of the woods.

Writing-wise, I have about ten fans who constantly encourage me to write more. One of them credits me with teaching him that he too can write for the joy of it. Therefore, I've already been a success. There's no shame in being a beer-league player. Just be the best beer-league player you can be.