Stephanie Gunn

So I’ve actually started writing again.

The obstacles to my writing are this: a gorgeous, though energetic, badly-sleeping, high needs six-month-old baby boy, lack of sleep because of said baby boy, and my own inconsistent health.

I’ve always been able to manage to work in some writing time around health issues. Combine that with the sprog, and we have writing disaster.

For most of the last six months, I’ve been so sleep deprived that writing has been the furthest thing from my mind. I’ve blogged a handful of times lamenting that I haven’t been able to write, and I’ve done a few dribs and drabs of work, but nothing substantial. And most of the time, I haven’t really wanted to write. Even now, the idea of writing a whole novel is daunting in a way it never has been before.

But even without that burning desire to put words onto the page, Story has still gnawed away at me. In particular, the story of Never.  It’s gotten to the point where I need to start writing it down.  Without writing, I feel like I’ve lost a part of me, and I’m determined to get it back.

For the next handful of years, my luxury of having many hours in which to write are gone.  The sprog always comes first.  I know that there are going to be days when I can’t write, because he needs me more, or because he’s had a bad night and I’m too sleep-deprived to think straight.

I need to make use of the good days.

The sprog’s sleep has improved dramatically this week with his move into his own room.  Which means that my sleep has improved dramatically, and I no longer feel like a total zombie.  I’m also now making use of family help to watch him for a few hours so I can get some work done.  Previously I’ve used that time to catch up on housework and the like.  Now it’s going to be a priority for me to write.  I can do a lot of housework while wearing the sprog, and he’s getting happier to sit and watch me do things for a while.  Writing, though, bores him to tears, and he spend the whole time trying to get to the keyboard or eat my laptop

So, to a new style of writing.

This means that I’m outlining.  My writing sessions right now consist of me working up my character biographies, making my characters really live and breathe.  I’m spending a lot of time describing my locations, as well as doing research.  An invaluable tool has also been tumblr I can search Flickr with one hand for images which inspire me, and blog them to tumblr to keep a collection of pieces of Never.

It’s happening.  Slowly, but it’s happening.  And as I catch up on sleep more (which is a trend that I hope will continue), I should be able to carve out some writing time in the evenings after the sprog has gone to sleep.

I’m also going to be more disciplined with reading.  I used to read 50 pages of whatever I’m reading for review a day, with any other spare time given over to reading for pleasure.  Not sure if I can manage the 50 pages a day now, but I want to try to read something of my review work every day, at least.

Discipline.  It’s what’s for breakfast.

Such is my schedule (or complete lack of one, thanks to the three month growth spurt – and lemme tell you, anyone who tells you that this growth spurt can be hard is telling the truth) that I’m not writing at all.

This is, perhaps, not completely true. I’m thinking about writing a lot – both about Never and The White Raven. And every time I make up my mind to work on one of them, I get an idea for the other one. In an ideal world, I’d try to work on them both, but that’s not going to happen. Well, it could, but it could be difficult. But hey, nothing worthwhile was ever easy, right?

I was pretty much ready to trunk The White Raven, but then that story started eating my brain again. I’m debating whether or not to add a prologue right now, giving a full description of Alanna’s car crash (apologies for this being meaningless for those who haven’t read the MS). Beta readers, do you think this is a good idea?

Reading has gone completely by the wayside, mostly because I’m either too tired or too busy with the sprog most of the time. I’ve traditionally always read for a while before bed, but I haven’t even been doing that, since I haven’t wanted to wake the sprog with the light.

Sooner or later I’ll find myself back in the word mines. For now, at least I can live in them mentally. And one day I’ll be awake enough after the sprog goes to bed to actually write.

In a couple of days Liam will be three months old.  It feels like he’s been here forever and at the same time, it feels like he’s only been here for a heartbeat.

Some things that I have learned:

1. Breastfeeding is hard.  If you have a bub who latches on straight away, you’re damn lucky.  I wasn’t, and it took a lot of hard work to get to where we are.  We still have some bad days if Liam is fussy, but most of the time it is wonderful.
2. I’ve dealt with fatigue from illness for a long time.  I thought I knew what tiredness and sleep deprivation were.  Hoo boy, I was wrong.  In the first few weeks, I was so sleep deprived that I was hallucinating.
3. People who offer help are angels, and you should take them up on it as much as possible.
4. My husband is truly awesome.  He did so much in the first few weeks, including dealing with many messy nappies in the middle of the night.
5. The smiles you get from your baby when you enter the room are the best thing ever.
6. Cloth nappies are awesome and awfully cute.  And dreadfully addictive.
7. Same goes for baby carriers.
8. You’ll find yourself doing things that you never planned on for the sake of your sanity.  For us, this was using disposable nappies fulltime for the first six weeks and introducing a dummy.  Still unhappy about the latter, but it keeps us sane and Liam happy.
9. For me, trying to get any work other than caring for the baby and looking after the house (a bare minimum of that) is impossible for the first few months.
10. That said, I’ve managed to do all of my judging work for the Australian Shadows Awards, and have started to plan a new novel in the last month.  I plan on returning to slush reading soon as well as trying to get more fun reading in.

The universe has been nudging me, in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways, to get back to writing.

And so, instead of continuously posting here that I want to write and should be writing, I damn well will start doing some when I can.

I have several projects that I could work on, but the two that are clamouring for attention are the next draft of The White Raven and the first draft of Never .

Right now, I’m leaning towards starting work on Never, if only to start properly outlining and getting all of my character bios and the like written.  I can do these in dribs and drabs, which suits the lack-of-predictable schedule I have in my life right now.

Another thing that I came across today:  Mur Lafferty, of I Should Be Writing is co-ordinating a group workthrough of The Artist’s Way (here at facebook).  The Artist’s Way is a book that I’ve always meant to pick up and work through, but have never gotten around to.  I can take the hint, universe.  I ordered a copy and will start to work through it as much as I can.

I’ll try to keep blogging about how I’m incorporating work back into my life, because there must be someone out there interested in it.

Let the new cycle of work begin.