When the words stop making sense

Something happened to me today for the first time: I couldn't write.

Not because of writer's block - the story is there - but because the subject matter is too close to my own reality.

For me, writing is a way to make sense of the world through ordering words on a page, just as when I was a child reading was a way of making sense of things when my immediate world did not. Each world between the pages had a beginning, middle and an end. They were dependable worlds. The real world - not so much.

One step forwards...

..two steps backwards

 

I'm way behind on my NaNoWriMo word count target. The official website mentions the week two doldrums, and I'm definitely a victim. And I don't even want to think about PiBoIdMo – I've had some picture book ideas, but the motivation to write them down on paper is at about 'meh' level.

The little darlings are so loving and peaceful
when they're not trying to subvert the creative process.

 

Part of the reason my motivation has faltered is that my NaNoWriMo word count went down instead of up. How? I decided to split one chapter into two, copied and pasted, then forgot to delete the duplicate text. So what seemed to be a particularly productive writing session was followed the next day by one in which I literally – and literaturely – went backwards.