Thinking and - about - vs - writing

Two weeks to go before my self-imposed start date to get back to the short story collection!

Even though today is perfect weather for knitting a fall cardigan (grey, soft-breezy, a little damp) I'm averting my eyes from such an idea and thinking about how that will work... which is to say, how many projects I have to get finished or hidden so I'm not drifting off to them instead once my tea is brewed on Day One.

And what to do if I do find I'm drifting, other than sit right back down again at the keyboard. Like, making a schedule for projects I really, really want to have done before Christmas and doling them out to myself as little rewards.

When writing goes well, it's the best thing in the world - Binnie described it to me recently as a kind of dream world where most of you is in the fiction and the rest just drifts through the house and daily life - and when it's not coming out at all, it's the hardest.

Harder even than not eating the remains of the fudge that got hidden in the back of the 'frig last week (yes, I ate the remains of the fudge.)

So: motivation. I'm a pretty accountable person and I do stick to deadlines which is why I set so many for myself, but it's tough to beat the motivation you get from a course. That's probably why along with the thinking, I'm remembering that this is the time of year when one applies for the Humber School for Writers correspondence course, so as to be sending off some work every week or two to a published, often award-winning or at least award-shortlisted writer for feedback and some direction.

Of course, delightful as this process is, it also requires a spare $3000 Cdn. So, you know, maybe I won't do it again this year. Or maybe I will use some of these last two weeks to figure out how I could.