Musings & Thoughts for Saturday, February 17, 2024, or: Shifting (Reluctantly) from Novel-Writing Mode into Weekend Mode

Mid- to Late Morning, Saturday, February 17, 2024, Madison, New Hampshire

Hi, everyone. As I start writing my 1,435^th post on A Certain Point of View, Too on a cold Saturday morning in New England, the sun is hiding behind a veil of gray clouds and the heater is running. The current temperature is 25°F (-4°C) under cloudy skies. With the wind blowing from the northeast at 2 MPH (3 Km/H) and humidity at 69%, the feels-like temperature is 32°F (0°C). The forecast for today calls for mostly cloudy skies and a high of 32°F (0°C). Tonight, we can expect mostly clear skies and a low of 6°F (-14°C).

On Writing & Storytelling: All Quiet on the Writing Front…Mostly

Yesterday I had a case of “slow starts.”  I began my midday break at a decent enough time – just a few minutes after noon – but then I dithered while I made and ate lunch, only coming back to my desk around 2:30 PM.

I eventually started working on Reunion: Coda at 3:15 PM. Because it was so late in the afternoon, and also because I couldn’t choose one of the two scenarios I had in mind for Scene Six, I chose to make more edits and revisions to the manuscript. It wasn’t what I had hoped to do, but I think I needed the “slowdown” – non-writers don’t know how physically and mentally exhausting writing fiction can be. And, let’s face it, at 60 going on 61, I don’t have the same amount of stamina I had when I was a college student in my 20s.

I don’t plan to work on Reunion: Coda this weekend for at least today and tomorrow; however, Monday, which is Presidents’ Day, will be a working day for me.

On Weekend Mode

Although part of wants to – sort of, at any rate – work on the novel, I will do my best to take it easy and go on weekend mode, at least for two out of the three days of this “three-day” holiday weekend. As I mentioned earlier, I am tired; I’ve been working on Reunion: Coda since mid-March of 2023, taking only a move-related hiatus between mid-November and early January. We writers are human, after all, and even the highly prolific and successful Stephen King only writes 20 or so hours per week and takes weekends off.

I don’t yet know what I’ll end up doing today for rest and recreation. My options, of course, are the same as always:

• Reading
• Listening to music
• Playing computer games
• Watching movies or TV shows I own on DVDs or Blu-rays

I also plan to go outside and get some fresh air and whatever sunlight there is (mostly ultraviolet rays, considering it’s cloudy today). I won’t be out there long, though. It’s too cold, and I don’t feel like having to worry about tracking any snow into the house on my boots.

Well, that’s all I have to share with you, folks, so I’ll close for now. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.