Life Changes Hindering Writing...

So I've been away for a while. I've started working 10 hour days lately, and will be doing so until the second week of May, but there's a bright spot at the end of that time - I'll be taking some time off. It's sort of a 'have to' thing, being that my contract with the college will be over until the fall, but I'm glad I'll have some time to myself. My search for a summer job has been quite fruitless, and so I've decided to give myself a little time to reflect and possibly take a course while I figure out what to do with myself. I'll be back to work for sure in the fall, but hopefully find a second part time job as early as June or July. There just aren't any jobs right now for a unilingual English Library Technician out there :(

Also, I've been away because of sadder reasons. My hamster died this past weekend, in the wee hours of the 18th, and so I've been steadily working through the grieving process of that. I'm a lot better now than I was, but it's still taken a lot of the wind out of my muse's sails. That, combined with my extremely long working hours has made me a zombie whenever I do have some computer time, and so my novel has temporarily been put on hold.

I do, however, have big plans. I plan to work on my novel every single day, starting when my contract ends for this term (early May). I plan to spend my days writing and napping and working out on Wii Fit and walking and searching the internet for jobs in my field. I hope, by the time I do go back to work, to have at least a partially completed manuscript, if not an entire rough draft. I also plan to document my progress here, so as to be accountable to something other than myself ^_^

I've also paused in my writing for Suite 101, although I have managed to punch out two articles in the past two weeks and outline a few more for later writing. Being so tired after work has made it almost impossible to write interesting articles, but I found a few that were pretty easy to write, so I managed to publish a little. My revenue has made it up to $1.47, but I know I'll have to work on more 'moneymaker' articles than simply 'ohh, I wanna write about this topic I like' articles. That would of course, require brain power, which I'm quite short on at the moment!

All in all I'm hanging in here. I'll be back to my normal inspired self in a few weeks. Novel is quietly simmering on the backburner though, and while my muse is very tired at the moment, it's still there.

Setbacks

My laptop crashed on the weekend, which is putting a serious hamper in my writing plans :( I guess the novel is on hold until I can get a new one, though I have a notebook I can scribble in if the mood strikes me. Never fear though, I will be back! I won't let this stop me ^_^

GAHH! *pulls hair out*

So, I'm up to 9 articles on Suite101, and I need another six to finish their '15 articles in 15 days' contest. Even if I don't win (which I won't) it'll give me a good article base to start with so I can take a breather. The contract for Suite is 10 articles every 3 months, so...I'll have until June to write more *lol* I'll definitely write more before then, but at least I'll allow myself to slow down a bit.

On the noveling front, I've slacked on writing it. I'm thinking about it all the time, but I've put my focus into Suite articles for now. After the two Seders for Passover I'll be able to actually sit down and write for more than a few minutes at a time, and I'm sure by the end of the first two days I'll be ITCHING to write again. It's very very hard for me to not write on Shabbos and Yom Tov, very hard.

I've also accepted that I won't get an answer back from the wilderness school I e-mailed late last week. I asked if I could get information about the daily lives of students and staff (general stuff like routines and the like) but no reply. I might try again, but not until I have the time to think more about it.

Also, after Passover I'm going to be hitting up a friend or my sister to come with me to an AA meeting for some reconnaissance, so I can get the feel of what the meetings are like. Writing a recovered (and then later relapsed) alcoholic for my story will require some research. I did write about it lots on the RPG board, but I want to really get into realism here, and the stuff on the board was all me guessing what it's like without actually knowing much about it. All I know about meetings and the like comes from TV shows and movies and hearsay...I want facts. I want to know what it's like to be in that room, listening to people talk about their addictions. The atmosphere is important to being able to clearly picture the situation I'm writing. What is that, method writing?

Anyway, bedtime soon. I'll go play with my hamster (who probly hates me now 'cause I haven't played with him all day o.o) and get some writing done. If my DS doesn't lure me away with its siren call of Mario Party *shifty eyes*