The last month has been pretty grim. I have done very little writing, as I’ve been dealing with some frustrating health issues. The main problem is that the generic version of my depression medication, while it worked when I took it daily, did not work in the weekly dose that I’m on now. Possibly as a result, I’ve had frequent and persistent migraines. I also was diagnosed with moderate sleep apnea, which means I get a mask to sleep with, but not until the end of the month, since they don’t have any appointments sooner.

On the plus side, once I get the mask and learn to sleep with it, I’ll probably have a lot more energy to do things during the day, maybe even including writing. I’m also back on the brand name of my depression meds, and I can already feel the difference. (It’s not up to full power yet, but it’s a lot better.) So, things are looking up.

The problem? I already have asthma problems, and now I’m going to need a mask to breath at night. As you might be aware, I have a nemesarial relationship with Brandon Sanderson. (He may know it now, as a friend told one of his friends at Balticon.) I had thought I was the good guy in this struggle, but I seem to be turning into Darth Vader. So, I guess all I can say is *mechanical breathing sounds* watch your back, Mr. Sanderson.

Since my last oh-so-inspiring post, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and even a fair bit of writing. I completed the outline for my screenplay and have started working through what I’ve written and matching it to the outline. I’ve also actually come up with a story for a couple of characters that have been floating around in my head for a while. I’m also on vacation and have actually slept for the last few nights, which improves my mood tremendously. I got a good chunk of work done this afternoon, including figuring out an aspect of the climax to the new story that had been perplexing me. A few more things to figure out, but I definitely have some solid bones.

I’ve been pondering quite a few things lately about how to make a go of this writing career. There’re several things I could do, starting with abandoning the working world to live in my mom’s basement. Considering that it’s flooded right now, this is not really much of an option. (Though if the sump pumps keep working so well….Oh, hi, Mom!) Honestly, though, I don’t think that would be the best path for me. I do like having a structure in my life. Finding balance between the structure of some sort of work and writing is important. This leaves me pondering several other choices open to me at the moment. Or open to me in the future, at least. I don’t like doing things rashly, that’s for sure. Yet in some ways, I think I need to be at least a little rash in order to make a go of a writing career. It will just be rash for me, as opposed to rash for other people. In theory, anyway. Has all this been cryptic enough for you? Good, because I’m at least as confused!

For about the last four months, my team at work has been down a person. About two or three weeks ago, I ran out of other people in the company I could give tasks to. This means that there’s stuff going unassigned, there’s stuff not getting done, and I’m doing a lot of things I should be delegating, since there’s nobody to whom I can delegate. Massive uncoolness all around.

I am very hopeful that this will end soon-ish. I still have one project that needs to be passed off, but that I don’t have anybody to whom I want to do the passing, and the replacement is unlikely to start soon enough to take it. Lots of stress all around, still.

All this means that most of my energy and focus has been going to work, not to writing. It’s gotten me thinking about the fact that so few people make careers as writers, and I wonder how much of that is because, for whatever reason, they cannot sit down and devote the time and energy to writing. Not won’t, but can’t, because of commitments like needing food and housing for themselves and possibly a family.

Yet there are people who still manage to make it work. In many ways, for me, this is actually discouraging, rather than encouraging. I haven’t been able to make it work, and at times like this, it seems unlikely that I ever shall. Do I just lack drive and vision? Is it really not my true calling? Or have I just worn myself out so badly at work these last few months that I can’t even psych myself out of a blue funk?

I’ve been stressing quite a lot lately about many things. Work has and seems to be doomed to remain quite busy. I haven’t had much time or energy for writing. But I might have hit upon a solution. The last few days, I’ve been putting in time in the morning, before I leave for the office. It helps that I have a middle and have been able to make good progress, I know, but it does, really, seem to work. Some positives:

1. I’m not tired from a day’s work, so I have mental energy to devote to the work.
2. I’m limited in the amount of time I have between when I get up and when I need to leave, so I am confined to only working for maybe half an hour to an hour. This is actually helpful. I don’t feel like I need to spend hours slogging over the work when I’m so brain-dead that “tasty” becomes “nasty.”
3. I start the day feeling accomplished before even going into the office. Since a lot of my job now is not so focused on accomplishment, it’s rather nice to have that positive spin on the day.

This may not last forever. I mean, I could see, for example, that a day where things aren’t going well setting my day off to a bad start. Although, as the kids in the Secret Garden would tell you, that’s the wrong sort of magic. So, it’s working well, and it will continue to work well, because I am going to finish this thing!

I think I finally have a middle for my screenplay. It certainly took me long enough to figure out what happens between the beginning, which as remained relatively unchanged, and the end, which is also relatively unchanged. But there’s now all this stuff that happens in the middle, and it came because of two changes to the story, one which I figured out a few days ago, and one that came to me more obliquely. I’m so excited that, despite needing to be at church at 9am tomorrow, I’m still awake and bouncy. Crazy!

This is the part of writing that I love, when the idea comes hot and fast, blossoming in my mind, bringing streamers of follow-on action and solutions to problems. It’s what makes the fact that writing is hard actually worth it.

When I haven’t left early or stayed home because of being sick, I’ve been staying really late at the office. Lots of things going on, and the uber-boss has made it clear that this will continue, and that it will be a refining fire, wherein he will see if we’re actually willing to put in the extra effort. And I am. But for some reason, as things are heating up and I’m melting nicely into a puddle of too-much-to-do-ness, I find my desire to write increasing.

Why? Is it because I want to escape from all the pressure? Is it because I actually thrive on having too much to do? I’m not sure. I mean, it’s not like I have time/energy to write. I got home at around 8:30 last night, completely brain-dead. I had dinner, poked my iPhone a little, and went to bed. Hardly a recipe for a dedicated writer. Yet my brain, in its spare time, is actually working on the problem I hit in my screenplay. It doesn’t make a great deal of sense, logically. But my brain has never been particularly fond of logic, so I don’t know why I’m surprised.

Maybe it’s just guilt for not doing NanoWrimo. I didn’t do it last year, but it wasn’t quite as bad, since most of my friends weren’t doing it, either. This year, more are participating, so I feel like I have to justify myself. Which I realize is silly.

I blame Brandon Sanderson, who I have appointed as my nemesis for absolutely no reason at all.

Okay, back to reviewing documents, providing feedback, and trying to dig out of this mountain of work.

My writers’ group is in what we’re calling 2.0. The theory, at least, is that we’re all making a big push towards finishing things and getting published/bought. Which means I got bullied into convinced to sign up for a submission slot. I didn’t have it done by the meeting, but I did finish it today, which I think means I’m still okay to get critiqued.

Why I think this is a good thing is a reflection of the fact it’s been too long since I’ve been critiqued.

IO9 posted an interesting article called “What’s The Matter With Story Arcs On Television?” The comparison is summarized as this:

“on the one hand, self-contained weekly episodes are newbie-friendly and easy to show in reruns, because it doesn’t matter what order you show them in. On the other hand, how deep can your characters and universe really get when nothing ever changes and the situations get fully resolved within 43 minutes?”

Apart from the amusing fact that the article references “Blake’s 7,” which is way old-school compared to the other references, this makes a good point. As a viewer, I’m rarely content with the purely episodic anymore. It’s one (of many) reasons I don’t watch most sitcoms. I know that, no matter how many times the dad learns the same lesson, he’s never going to change.

However, as the article points out later, “shows that offer complete resolution every week tend to be lighter, maybe even fluffier, than shows that draw out stories over months or years.” I tend to prefer my shows lighter, happier. If I wanted dark, I wouldn’t be trying to escape. It’s one reason I eschewed the new Battlestar Galactica series.

My favorite shows strike a balance between the two extremes, but in a positive way. Psych doesn’t always bother, but most of the time, Shawn is growing up. He’s not conforming to some set standard of behavior (and since the audience is primarily independently-minded Americans, it’s unlikely that’ll happen), but he is learning that it’s okay to be more serious now and again. Numb3rs has seen the relationships between Don, Charlie, and their dad grow into more mature, adult relationships. In Doctor Who (which the article kind of pokes fun at for mock story-arcs), the companion, at least, grows and changes and matures through the seasons. Donna at the beginning of season four is different and, I think, a better person than Donna at the end.

The new Warehouse 13 is something I’m enjoying. It’s been primarily episodic and primarily upbeat. There are strings that are going through, but they’re not beating us over the head with them. So far, I like how it’s going. I don’t imagine I’m going to be watching a show a year from now in which the characters all hate each other but can’t escape their horrible situation. (Which is sometimes what I’ve felt from other shows.)

After all, even in shows with a more firm episodic format, like NCIS, you can have growth over seasons without a specific story arc. Granted, NCIS does have story arcs, some better done than others. The more interesting part to me, though, is watching the characters deal with the fall-out from the climaxes of these story arcs. Gibbs dealing with Kate’s loss and Tony dealing with the break-up of his relationship with Jeanne are two examples.

But I still have never forgiven [insert responsibel parties here] for the travesty that was the ending of Pretender. It became clear only later on that the writers didn’t actually know where they were going, so the clues that we get in the first couple of seasons never add up. Not only that, but they completely ditched two of the most important relationships in the series–Sydney and Jarod as father/son and Jarod and Miss Parker as love interests. They didn’t even change these relationships, so that we could understand why they moved on. They just stopped bothering. Even more than never knowing all the secrets they were lobbing at me, those changes still rankle.

Given the amazingly tough job it is to get a show made, let alone aired, I can understand why no writer would want to plot out everything in advance. Given the transiency in casting, where an actor may not want to come back for a second season, even the plotting out in advance can wind up all needing to be chucked out. I know I complain about how much bad TV there is, but given the process, it’s in many ways amazing that there’s not much worse! I tip my hat to the runners of my favorite shows, for being able to turn out good products year after year, despite all the pressures they face. Keep at it, because I love you!

Decided in a bored moment to attempt the snowflake outline method on a short story that’s been kicking around in my head for months. I could actually do the first step, as I know what I want the story to be about. Second step–that’s a doozy! I guess that’s partly why I haven’t written it–I don’t know what happens. Funny, that. If I weren’t focused so much on the screenplay, I would take more time out to figure it out. Maybe once I’m done.

Also, in case anybody is wondering, I did NOT come up with a sequel for “Bubba Cthulhu’s Last Stand.” At all. Even a little bit. I do not need more story ideas. I have too many as it is! *glares at the plot bunny in the hopes it will be ashamed and go away*

I have been working on the snowflake outline for my screenplay. It’s helping. A lot. I have found holes, which I have filled. I have found out things about my characters I didn’t know that I needed to know. I still have a ways to go in this outlining process, but I feel much better about things. I think that, when I sit down to write it, I will be writing the story I’ve wanted to tell all along, as opposed to going off on dead-end side tangents.

I realized on Saturday one of the best benefits of this outlining thing. In the past, I’ve come up with great ideas and written them out and only then realized they don’t fit in with the story I’m trying to tell. With working in a structured way, I am still coming up with great ideas, but they are ideas that fit within the story I’m already crafting. One of the greatest fears authors have, or at least that I’ve had, about outlining is that it will stunt the creative juices. If you do it right (or right for you, whichever way that is), it just helps to channel those juices.

And who doesn’t love juice?