I’m grateful that right now, knock on wood, I don’t have any looming deadlines. I can plug away, day by day, making progress, no pressure. It’s really nice. Such a relief.

This period should last for at least the next… two or three weeks.

Meanwhile, I’m (as always) struggling with the research. I’m always impatient to get the words on the page, and “just researching” makes me nervous. But onward I trudge.

If I’d just focus on the research and allow the book to come to full boil before trying to write it, I wouldn’t have to delete so much.

Same goes with reading. I want to read a book a day. I need to have a bigger understanding of the YA genre, so I need to read a ton more books. But again, “just reading” makes me nervous. Even though the work is fun, for sure! I think that’s why I feel guilty.

So thank you, universe. I like this time I have. Even if it does make me nervous. I constantly feel the pressure to write faster, to produce more, because I don’t want this opportunity to pass me by.

Do you struggle with patience? With nervousness when you have time to take your time? With guilt over reading, even though it’s part of the job? And how are deadlines treating you, at the moment?

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© Natasha Fondren for Natasha Fondren, 2010. | 18 comments

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I write better if I “only” have to think about my story. Then I can get distracted, and I know where to pull myself back to. Before, if I got distracted, I had to spend time trying to figure out which task, out of the thirty-some on my list per day, I should pull my attention to.

Oddly enough, the realization that I have time to write slowly makes me want to write faster.

It’s that I want more time to tinker.

When I first wrote, I remember spending an hour tinkering with a paragraph, changing a word here or there, seeing how different word choices effected the whole. I remember grinning at my computer screen, I was having so much fun.

When did I stop grinning while writing?

I know part of it is that I’ve gotten quicker at picking the right word. But there are other things to tinker with, and I want to play again. I’ve been tinkering with plot a lot, lately, and my lines have suffered. It feels, sometimes, like I’m standing over my work with binoculars, going in and out for the small view and the big view. I need more time with the small view.

I used to love deadlines, but now I hate them. I want to get so ahead, that I never have to worry about them again.

So what have you been tinkering with, lately?

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© Natasha Fondren for Natasha Fondren, 2009. | 28 comments

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