Sweating with Sven warmup

I've managed 1000+ words both yesterday and today on Threshing the Grain. No idea how they actually read. I sense I'm rambling, trying to figure out who the characters are--I thought I knew, but as I started writing I realized a lot remains to be discovered. Tomorrow will the next installment of the Mysterious Novella with Dayle. (And mysterious it is. I mean, we have a plot. We have characters. We have a setting. Yet it doesn't seem to be settling down as gracefully as some of our pieces do. Partly, I think, because I keep thinking novella means we have, oh, 40,000 words, and in this case it's more long short story.

The glamorous life of a writer is feeling less glamorous than usual of late. I think that much of my malaise is more literally malady, a low-grade sinus bug that's just making me feel so run-down that doing anything is a struggle. (I'd be more worried about this if half the area wasn't down with it. My office isn't exactly a lively place right now, with us all struggling to stay awake, let alone produce accurate payrolls.) I'm tired, I'm uninspired, I'm cranky, and I'm afraid I whined at both my dear co-author and at my friend R.

R, being a wise fellow and rather experienced in the vagaries of creative types, promptly took me for a walk around the block. It's chilly, but star-filled, and smells like autumn leaves and, faintly, of chocolate--my house is near a chocolate factory. He's promised a trip to the beach tomorrow after I've gotten some writing done (I'm carless at the moment) to walk by the water and blow the cobwebs out of my head.



Meanwhile, I'm wearing my cat ears and trying to think positive.