Playing Hooky Silver Linings

Staying home with a head cold last week turned out to be a good thing disguised as a bad thing. Getting a whole lot of submissions out and about again kick started my competitive nature and reminded me that if I want to come home to nice emails about stories being considered or accepted, well, those stories have to be out there, in the world, rather than languishing on my hard drive. A simple truth, but one often forgotten :)

Since I also went through my notebooks and lined up a few promising ideas I'd jotted down, plus pulled forth a number of stories that I remembered as being half-baked but which turned out to be surprisingly close to completion, I regained a sense of many works in progress all jostling for attention. Days of cocooning with my keyboard whilst blowing my nose got me back into pushing those almost-dones to their thrilling conclusions. Organising the notice boards over my writing desk gave the place a more bustling vibe that adds energy to whole feedback loop - things to do! deadlines to make! I wrote over the weekend, and when I returned to the Arvo Job on Monday, I found myself going over stories in my head as I walked across the park to work, and again in the evening walking from work. Aaaah - I felt so back to normal, and loved it!

So writerly structure is returning to my life, in between all the hospital crap, which will, alas, go on for a while yet. Rather than dabbling, I'm re-establishing old habits like writing on the train instead of napping. I'm off all painkillers and am periodically feeling quite chirpy - my sister and I have even tentatively agreed to go for a short horse ride in 4 weeks. And today, setting myself a challenge (it was a bit of a brain check, really), I actually came up with an idea, then started and finished a brand new short story, which just rolled off my fingertips, so my confidence is up and my self-satisfaction levels are skyrocketing. I'll polish it and send off by the end of the month.

Anyway, the upshot of this post is that rather than being an uphill slog, writing is actually fun again.