{"id":198,"date":"2026-07-03T14:31:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T18:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vorpalunicorn.com\/?p=198"},"modified":"2026-07-03T14:31:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T18:31:48","slug":"i-want-to-write-but","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vorpalunicorn.com\/?p=198","title":{"rendered":"I want to write, but…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The temperature when I woke up was 87. (ew.) So the air conditioner has been running since before I came into my room.  I\u2019m listening to music, but because of differences in volume, some music is clear over the noise of the AC and some barely audible, and some fades in and out as the volume rises and falls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how writing has been for me lately\u2014sometimes I pick up the pen and barely have to think as the words spill out. Sometimes I get antsy in a way that means I have words that want to be written, but I\u2019m busy with work, or something that needs to be clean or dealt with\u2014this is probably about 95% of the time. Other times, the words are there, and they\u2019re forming full scenes and ideas, but I\u2019m not in any kind of position to put them down\u2014like last night, while I was in the shower, I had pretty much a fully formed story idea start to flesh itself out, when I\u2019d previously had a line or two running through my head the other day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That doesn\u2019t really seem to make the two things comparable, but when the words flow\u2014that\u2019s when I can hear the music fully. When I\u2019m working and can\u2019t do anything about the ideas\u2014I know the music is playing, but I can barely hear it. And when I get the ideas but can\u2019t write it down, that\u2019s when I hear the music fading in and out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s rather frustrating. For a while this year, I was doing pretty well with writing somewhat regularly. I wrote just over 8000 words the first few months. That\u2019s over double what I wrote last year.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seriously, I didn\u2019t write even 4,000 words all of last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not lack of desire, or ideas\u2014once I get started, that comes easily, it\u2019s just an issue of getting<\/em> started. A big part of the problem is that there\u2019s a lot of cleaning and organizing that needs to be done throughout the house. And great as Rob is, he doesn\u2019t always see that it\u2019s any kind of problem, because it doesn\u2019t affect him\u2014he has acknowledged this, and copped to it, and admitted that he could do better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, yes, that\u2019s just an excuse. I know that\u2019s what some people would say, and yes, to an extent, it\u2019s true. But something I\u2019ve learned over the years is that my environment will come to mirror my mental state. So if my office space is messy and full of clutter and the desk is gritty from a coating of pollen and dust, that makes me feel like I\u2019m shrinking in on myself, and thoughts of all the things around that need to be dealt with fill my head and push out the story ideas and words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new job\u2014though most of what I do is busy work, with only occasional proofreading and copyediting\u2014is helping to keep writing more in the foreground. But then I still have to keep it there after lunch, when I have time, and then it gets bogged down in trying to figure out what I need to get done\u2014or what I can get done\u2014in the time that I have until Rob gets home from work\u2014which isn’t all that long unless he’s going to be late, or until it\u2019s time for dinner. Or, when I can manage to get my ass moving, what I can do between lunch and exercising, and between exercise and dinner. Because that also is something that I need to be doing more of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what\u2019s really annoying\u2014the reason I haven\u2019t written in a bit more than a month\u2014i stopped the scene I was working on because I needed a name. It\u2019s fantasy, so I create some of the names, and I was doing that, then dinner interrupted, then I never went back to actually deciding on the name, and then I didn\u2019t get back to the story, except in my head\u2014mostly during showers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now, I should really be cleaning my desk, because it\u2019s covered in gritty pollen and dust and cat fur, and there\u2019s barely there cobwebs and knocked over figurines\u2014George’s tail is sometimes a bit destructive, and I should really clear the space in front of the window so the cats have somewhere to sit that\u2019s not in my way. But it takes several hours, because it\u2019s not just a quick wipe down, and it\u2019s now lunchtime and kitties want food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(And posted after lunch, because kitties needed food.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The temperature when I woke up was 87. (ew.) So the air conditioner has been running since before I came into my room.  I\u2019m listening to music, but because of differences in volume, some music is clear over the noise of the AC and some barely audible, and some fades in and out as the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “I want to write, but…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9],"tags":[21,22,7,6],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cleaning","category-writing","tag-cleaning","tag-music","tag-words","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vorpalunicorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vorpalunicorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vorpalunicorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vorpalunicorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vorpalunicorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vorpalunicorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202,"href":"https:\/\/www.vorpalunicorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions\/202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vorpalunicorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vorpalunicorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vorpalunicorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}