Presence

Last week's work went well, especially considering a mysterious Christmas Eve illness. I didn't realize what was going on, and I suppose it may have just been food poisoning. I'll probably never know now. Regardless, I edited to chapter 18, and am feeling very good about this home stretch. I now have a better understanding of what was missing in an epilogue yet to be written, and having scanned most of it within a short span, I am more familiar with this new retelling, this rewrite. Earlier in the process I was worried I had written the same story. I have banished that fear.

I had a good conversation with a writer colleague, and her questions put me in a great position to see what my story might look like to different eyes. She is preparing a piece for submission herself, and I think the process was as beneficial for her as it was for me. We're supposed to be getting together for a more in depth chat this week. If I had my druthers, I would be able to finish everything before that meeting, not because she's read it, but because I'd be able to have a discussion about this writing because I'd be carrying all of it with me.

I worked on Christmas Eve. Stumbling to bed that evening, delirious from mental fatigue, I thought to myself that I would be giving myself the best present: belief. If I believe in what I'm doing, I told myself, then I will put in the work required as if I have no choice but to succeed. I achieved a strange kind of head space where a lot of different things made sense in their insanity. "Of course I give myself hard work as a present. That means that the results are valuable, that what I'm doing is worthwhile, more than a lot of other distractions that I could be succumbing to." Of course, I was also sick, so maybe we'll just chalk that up to fever dreaming.

I'm ahead of schedule, with all next week penciled in for work, also, though I doubt I'll need it at this point. If I can finish the rewrite, with this new section I have in mind to add, edit it, and fix the formatting, I might actually get a chance next week to relax before I go back to work, because I will finally have that new novel, that new story, to submit to new publishers. It's been a while since I had something complete, and unconnected to previous writings. Sometimes it feels like sweeping water in the bottom of a well. It isn't going anywhere, but if I focus, I can make sure a unit by unit section is perfectly dry, dry enough to maybe get at whatever is at the bottom of a pit of wishes.

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