Bo-Bo Knows A Period of Orientation

Inauspicious. That's the word that springs to mind when I sat down this morning to see that I worked on my book for only 5 hours and 54 minutes of the 15 hours I just hired myself to put in every week.

The inner mean boss likes that word. Because inauspicious has just the right blend of pretentious haughtiness, don't you think?. It brings to mind the image of a nasty old lady, arms crossed, eyes staring at me over the world's ugliest reading glasses. Everything about the posture of this woman tells me I'm a failure. And when I calmly explain that work got crazy, that I took two days off to spend time with my husband, that I managed to do an hour a day on my busiest days to compensate, she just sniffs at me:

"And how many episodes of Dr. Who did we watch, hmmm?"

Fair point, I guess. Though I would argue that one of the episodes was "Love and Monsters,"  a fine example of bloody brilliant story telling.

But  although I'm no stranger to treating myself as a metaphorical whipping post (do better, do more, you suck you suck you totally suck!) I've decided thinking like that is just not helpful. Pas de tout! Which if I remember right means not at all, but even if it doesn't, so what? What are you gonna do, little librarian boss lady that lives in my brain? Stare at me to death?

Did I have the kind of first week I was hoping to have? No. I had just a little south of 40 percent of the week I was hoping to have. But it's a start I'm deciding to think of as "orientation." And it was useful time! I entered last week stuck on the epilogue. This week I got six pages in, realized it was totally wrong, berated myself for (yet again) not getting it right the first time, and then pulled out a fresh piece of paper and planned out a new take on the scene that (miracle of writing spoiler alert) works better! Yes, I wrote pages, scrapped them, and ended the week with "just" an outline of what to do this week. But that's kind of why the revision process is all about putting the time in and not the page count. I could have done more--perhaps I should have done more--but I've decided that as far as orientations go, it was a brilliant first week:

• Eased myself into a new habit? Check! 
• Created a plan of attack for moving forward? Check! 
• Generated excitement for the possibilities of the new ending? Check! Check! Check! 
• Ready to commit to finishing the epilogue this week? Well, no. Not check. 

Because though I'm committed to getting my 15 hours in this week, who knows what that time will bring. The scene I'm working on now will likely thrive, but the scene after that? I'm done with the crystal ball sorcery of writing goals I can't control, like "finish a scene" or "write an epilogue" or (gulp) "finish this draft." Because after looking into my future (read that as glancing at my day planner),  I can be reasonably assured that I'll eke out 15 hours of work this week. If that brings me to the end of this revision,  fantastic. But if it doesn't, some  other week's hours will. Because progress, however slow, will lead to a finish line eventually. Isn't that the first commandment in the church of writing or something?

Plus, if I don't pull my shit together this week, my inner librarian will come at me with this  message:




And nobody wants to die at the hands of a  Dalek sucker thingy because--let's face it--death by Dalek is kind of lame.