I Didn't Sign Up For a Chore

I think I have singlehandedly taken the fun out of my writing.

Before I buckled down and got serious about writing Ivolet, I was writing what I felt like writing, when I felt like writing it. True, it wasn't a very productive method. But I enjoyed it.

Not that I didn't enjoy writing the first two drafts of Ivolet. Writing them was the first time I'd ever written the same thing for that long and that consistently. I loved that thrill of accomplishment, and I loved the story, too. It was fun.

Then came the month of no Ivolet. I took a load off, wrote some random Thin Ice scenes, and felt the writing again. I walked through the house imagining plot and dialogue; my lips moved with what she said, what he said. (You would have thought I was crazy.) It was so good to get back to that; it's how all my stories start. With an idea, and then something I think about almost constantly, and then to paper. It's how Ivolet started. Moments that made my heart beat to think of them.

Then I wrote 177,859 words about one person. You'll understand why my every thought no longer went to that person. If writing is a marriage, and words are hours, then I've been married twenty years. I know everything I could ever need to know about this person. Thus we separated, and I had an affair with Thin Ice. It was passionate and most likely brief. I do like it, but I'm not sure if it will ever come to anything. I can only spend so much time and energy on so many stories.

The time has come to return to Ivolet, my lovely girl with violet eyes who most likely doesn't have violet eyes anymore. I need to change the title. I'm just having a really hard time wanting to return to the intimacy I once had. Last night was an eye-opener, the feeling of story coursing through me again; it's been so long since I've experienced that, yet it's what drew me to writing in the first place.

But there's something I haven't realized. Continuing the marriage theme, I have discovered that I am not married to Ivolet - my passion was not made just for Ivolet. No - if anything, I'm married to writing (metaphorically speaking). And the fun part of writing is the moment when you see a picture and your fingers fly and you bring it to become words. That's the fun of writing, that's what it's all about.

So we're going to install a proper date plan now. Like a young couple's Friday night, we're going to take some off from the daily grind and just enjoy each others company. We're gonna Love Dare this, baby! It can be anything: that little glimpse of things inspired by a image of Isolde walking down the beach in Tristan+Isolde, a requested FanFiction series of The Dark Knight, more of Thin Ice, more of a girl called Adie that you've heard nothing about, more of Rain and Zest, more fun.

I haven't decided what it will be yet, whether it will be a certain length of time everyday or a certain percentage of my writing time every day. Maybe it will be a day reserved. I don't know. But I know it will be, and I'm going to have fun writing again. Because without that, it's a chore.

And I didn't sign up for a chore, no matter how much work it is.

iTunes DJ

"Please," by Turn Off the Stars
"Harmony," by Take No Glory
"Redeemed," by Sharon D. Smith
"Be Thou My Vision," by Fernando Ortega
"On Eagle's Wings," by Theocracy
"Letter From the Grave," by Carriers of the Cross

Okay, so this ^^^ is a new thing. Inspired by Agent Kristin over at Pub Rants, I'm going to let you know what I'm listening to today. But I'm taking it a little further and giving you everything that was playing as I wrote the post. Songs in bold are the ones that have a 5-star rating in my iTunes. (I'm very conscientious about my iTunes ratings.) But just because they don't have a 5-star rating, that doesn't mean I don't like it. If I don't like a song - I delete it. (Why would I even up with music that I don't like? I take great advantage of The Free Christian Music Blog. I usually score pretty well, but sometimes I end up with screamo. I...can't stand screaming from a purely aesthetic standpoint.)