So… let’s talk about derailment. I’ve not been properly active or even been able to write much for just over a year. The third book in the Daemonva trilogy is stalled out. Sometimes, life happens, and movement becomes difficult. I think every writer knows this. My particular derailment, this time, started last November, when I was doing Nanowrimo. That orange-faced brain-dead shit weasel was elected President of the United States, and the sheer level of fear and anxiety that came pouring out everywhere, from Americans I care about, threw me off-course. I gave up on Nanowrimo, and tried to adjust.
Then, I had a miscarriage in December, and everything stopped. I had no mental space for anything but myself. No narratives could be built from that–or, at least, none I wished to tell as a novel. I tried to adjust again.
I found out I was pregnant in April. I tried to adjust. We moved into a housing co-op in September, into a great, new, stable home with a wonderful community around us. I tried to adjust. One of our dearest friends from college died suddenly. I tried to adjust.
My son was born at the start of December, and, once again, the world moves under my feet. Derailment happens, for better or worse. So now I have to figure out how to be a writer in these new circumstances; how to tell the stories I want to tell, how to finish the current trilogy, and how to move on. I may not succeed at all this, but I’m going to give it my best shot.
There will likely be masses of tea involved.