Tomorrow HNS2021 starts and I wish I were more excited than I am.
I type this from my home office – the same office from which I’ve been working from home for the past year and a half. So while I have the week off the day job, there’s not much change in my routine. Indeed, I still have domestic obligations that aren’t going away just because I’m on (sort of) vacation.
I’ve made shamefully little progress in my writing, due to…well, everything. It’s been a crap year. I’ve even neglected my blog because I’ve simply not had much to talk about. “Be forgiving of yourself”, yes, but I go into this conference in about the same place as I did back in 2019—except without not even an active blog presence to point to.
My first HNS was back in 2015. Back then I was excited about the conference and the people and the classes and the first feedback on my first draft of The Book!!! This year (my fourth conference, Christ, my fourth!) I just want to be done with the latest draft of The Book so I can start querying it again and move on to the next thing.
More than anything else I want to get excited about the Next Thing. The muse isn’t gone, and I still sit down to Scrivener every morning in case it shows up. I’ve got a couple of vague notions (and one short story I’m actually eager to polish) but that feeling of being so seized by an idea that I can think of nothing else eludes me.
I’m in a ditch. I know I can dig out. It’s taking a hell of an effort though, and I’m an impatient person.
Over the next few months I am going to try and resurrect this blog though. If you have any ideas of what a (still relatively isolated and housebound) writer might blather about I am all ears.*
*Contrary to perceptions my comments are not closed – they’re just closed after 3 weeks and I’ve not written a blog post in 3 months.
