Well I’m just about asleep already anyway. I can barely keep my eyes open to type this. Basically the writing went good today. I did it on paper again, but I’m pretty sure I made the 500 words for the day. Also a lull in the battle, though you might call it a lull between a pair of battles fought between the same enemies, is giving Kevin some time to deal with some of his emotional problems after everything I did to him. That’s making it easier to write from his point of view again.

For some reason I’m going low-tech these days. Not in the content of the story, that would be next to impossible with sci-fi, but in the writing. I’ve written on paper only for the past couple of days and today will be no different. As a result I only have estimates and not word-counts, but I wouldn’t say the wordcount is suffering.

I also took a slight break from blogging over the last few days, largely because I was away from home. But I will admit that in this area my motivation suffers a little from doing the actual writing low tech for a few days.

Yes, I have sinned. I’m away from home right now, and I just don’t feel like writing. So I’m skipping for the day. I have promised myself to work on mentally choreographing the space battle my characters are currently involved in. It’s going to be rather tricky, if I want them to come out of it alive.

While I don’t really believe such a thing as “normal” exists this was a pretty normal night’s writing again for the first time this week. I managed to write 500 words without too much extra effort in a reasonable time.

While I’m very tired (and heading for exhausted) for the first time in days it’s not because of the writing but just a normal tired feeling. The less emotionally exhausting part of my POV change finally seems to be coming into its own. The problems are so much simpler now: we’re back to just having to survive space battles.

The words didn’t come as easily as I’d half expected today. It was still a struggle for each word and after I got the first 200 the next 300 seemed like a bloody long way to go. But I managed to get over the line in the end so I can’t complain. Today’s 500 also lifted me over the 64,000 word mark. It’s not bad, but with the end rapidly approaching I think Lightning will end up being a bit on the short side for a novel.

I did a little better today than yesterday, but not much, 276 words in all to be precise. But those 276 have carried me over the point I was half dreading for the last few days. Within 2000 words after my Kevin’s father died his older brother just died as well. I knew this was going to happen, I’m the sadistic bastard who thought it up after all, but that didn’t make writing it any easier.

Something else should help things go more easily tomorrow as well. This was my final scene from Kevin’s POV for the time being, the end of this chapter. That means I get to switch POV and deal with the emotions second hand for a while. It should be easier to write that way, both for my own emotional involvement and for believability.

Just a little on Lightning today, but at least I managed to pick it right up again. Roughly 200 words for the day is not a great achievement, but I’ve been quite tired today, partly my own fault, I stayed up reading a bit too long last night. Just long enough that the sleepiness went away again and I had a devil of a time getting any sleep.

Tonight I’m making myself promise to put the lights out in time. It’s a little easier tonight; I finished the book I kept reading last night around noon today.

Now on a side note for the day, something I noticed about modern news. Perhaps it just caught my eye today, but when did the news start to be reported in the future tense? I just finished reading an article provided online by BBC news that reports about an upcoming piece in a magazine that “… will accuse… will say (used several times)… will also accuse… will compare… will describe… will add:…” etc.

It reminds me – perhaps I should say it will remind me? – of some pieces of The Hitchhiker’s Guide series by Douglas Adams, where the news is reported from the future by reporters travelling through time. I guess I just missed the news flash that the BBC has perfect this technique already.

I made a dangerous decision today. Actually I made it about ten minutes before writing this. The decision? I decided not to work on Lightning today. I just can’t get focused on Lightning. Keving still has the POV and I can’t get anywhere near the emotions he’s feeling at this point. I’ve decided it’s just too distant to try to write it now.

I’ll be doing some worldbuilding work on other projects instead of the work on Lightning. That makes me feel less guilty about this, but it does little to offset the danger of the decision. The danger is, of course, that what happened last year will repeat itself. That “I’ll just take a break today” will suddenly become “I haven’t done anything on that in eleven months”. Here’s hoping it won’t happen.

My wordcount is now officially only 370 for today. I have some time left to try for more, but I’m just too tired. Writing my MC as, amongst other things, he deals with his father’s death is not easy. I’m not sure I’m doing it justice yet, but even the way I’m writing it now is emotionally exhausting for me. In some ways writing can be a lot like acting. Actors often call on emotional memories to act the emotions their part requires. When I write I usually feel the emotions (from memory or imagination I cannot say) I’m putting my characters through.

Back to the normal 500 words today. Not another sprint like yesterday, but writing the emotional repercussions of my MC seeing his father die (from his POV so far) isn’t exactly easy. I’m pretty sure they’re not coming out right yet either, but that’s for edits (I seem to be saying that a lot these days). At least I’m feeling a bit better physically today – knock on wood.