Spinning out

Just a quick post before I go to bed…and I really should, because it’s freaking late.

I feel like I’ve been getting more and more busy, yet less and less productive.  It’s @%$! frustrating.  In the last two weeks, I’ve had numerous job applications and interviews (though not as many interviews as I’d like), tons of complicated paperwork for the EPIK job in Korea I’m hoping to take come September, the only TEFL course I’m taking (in which I feel I am constantly behind), and all sorts of other random crap.

Oh, and then there’s writing.  I’ve been averaging only about 1.5k words per day, which is kind of pathetic when you realize that I don’t have regular work.

I wish I could say that I’ve been spending a lot of this extra time socializing, but sadly that isn’t the case.  I haven’t gone out on a date in months, and with each passing week I drift further and further from the people in my ward.  I’ve been pretty active with Quark, though, so that sort of makes up for things, but not enough.

One of the good things, though, is that I’ve been getting up relatively early all week–and by “relatively,” I mean before 9:00 am.  Next week’s goal: go to bed by 1:00, and get up before 8:00.  The timestamp on this post can probably tell you how much of a head start I’ve got.

Oh, and I have been exercising regularly.  That’s a good thing, I suppose.  Haven’t seen many results of that, except perhaps a slightly more active lifestyle, but it’s fun and I’ll keep it up.  Running is where I catch up on old podcasts, and I subscribe to quite a few.

I don’t know if this late night rant is useful in any way, except maybe to empathize with what it’s like when you’re busy all the time but never feel like you’re getting enough done.  I guess most people feel like that at one point or another, but it’s good to look back and see what you accomplished, like I did here.  For all the spinning out, I suppose it wasn’t a total wash.  And really, it almost never is.

But yeah, the main thing that makes me angsty is that I never feel that I’m writing enough.  I hear from everyone that with the way the publishing world is changing, fast writers have a huge advantage over slow ones.  And I know I have the ability to write fast, it’s just that I never really do it consistently.

Fast, in my mind, is 4k words or more per day.  I can hit it when I’m on, but that’s fairly rare.  Most of the time, I average between 2k and 2.5k, and my personal deadlines reflect that.

At least with ITND, however, I’ve been writing consistently every day…except today, when I took time off to revamp a short story (“From the Ice Incarnate”).  But my wordcount graph  hasn’t had any huge spikes or valleys, which is good I suppose.  The novel is coming along, if slowly, and that’s a good sign.

Anyhow, enough of this rant.  Time for bed.