On Writing (Again)

I didn’t write any fiction for most of the month of February. I had started a regimen where I wrote every day, or most every day. I was going along pretty well. I was working on a longer project that, with hindsight, probably never would have worked out, but I was writing, at least, and that was something. Then I hit a setback. It wasn’t anything big, I don’t guess, in the grand scheme of things, but it took the wind out of my sails, and I stopped writing. Anything.

February was a busy month, anyway, and I was doing a lot of stuff with Monster Awareness Month. It’s not like I was swimming in free time, just staring at the ceiling. But I also, very consciously, wasn’t writing. (And when I say “writing” here, I again mean fiction. I was writing lots of stuff for Monster Awareness Month, and blog posts, and etc.)

I’m finally getting back into it. I’ve got a calender at home with pictures of posters from old-fashioned magic shows on it, and I put a black X through every day that I write more than a couple-hundred words. (250 is my current minimum.) So far I’ve put an X through every day in March. It’s all just been fragments, things that will never even coalesce into anything. Just my attempts to get back on the bike. But I’ve done it every day, which, again, is a start. That’s the first step.

I spent some time trying to come up with something for IFP’s forthcoming Future Lovecraft anthology. I’ve realized that I don’t have any affinity for science fiction anymore, but I think I may’ve finally come up with something that I’m interested in writing that still meets both criteria of being Future and also Lovecraft. Whether or not it’ll actually fit the bill of what they’re looking for, only time will tell.

Still, though, I’m working again. Regardless of whether it’s any good or not, or going where I plan for it to. I’m doing something. And I’m making plans. Both of which are things that didn’t really happen in February. February felt like sort of a fugue month, a fallow period in which, Monster Awareness Month notwithstanding, nothing really happened. March has already started to change that, which is a good feeling. And I’m making plans for the future, which is another good one. So here’s to March, and to hoping!