logjam

My writing project didn’t end with NaNoWriMo, but then it hardly began with it, either. Every time I write a sentence down, I go back and hack away at the rest of it until I remember that the rest of my plot is in shambles anyway and I should probably fix that first. Then I wander away to think it over, which consists mostly of coming up with outlandish ideas and rejecting them one after the other. By the time I come back to the computer, I’ve given up on planning ahead and just try to write as it comes to me – but inevitably I get frustrated by the fallacies of being forcibly spontaneous, and the whole thing starts over again.

I tell myself that before I spend a lot of time on a blog entry, too, I should really get some writing done with the novel.

3 aborted beginnings later, I have no novel and I’ve missed out on writing a ton of blog posts, too.

Frustration is building on more than a writer’s front. I’m getting a little tired of being here – learning the language is proving difficult, and I’ve fallen off track on my rigorous schedules for working out and practicing music. I wonder sometimes why I don’t just power through these challenges, but I know: I have a bad tendency to clam up and withdraw from worlds that I think I can’t interact in very well, as opposed to challenging them. I hermit up. And that’s what I’ve been doing lately. Yesterday I slept for most of the day, because of the nausea induced by that bad dumpling, but it felt like just another day where I spent most of it in my room doing nothing.

Going out seems like too much trouble. Making friends seems like a lot of hassle. The adventuring spirit that I had in the beginning of the year is gone and now I just want to find a way to live by myself tucked away in my corner.

Well, the Chinese New Year month-long break is coming up, at least. Things will get better.