Changing Plans

I’ve written before about being change averse, and learning to cope when my best laid plans are inevitably disrupted. It’s an ongoing process, but it’s a process I’m thrilled to have started, especially during months like this one.

Right now, trying to plan for anything feels like an exercise in futility. I was planning to participate in National Novel Writing Month, which is one of my favorite yearly traditions, and I thought it’d be no trouble to put the finishing touches on my mystery revision and have it ready to go before November 1st.

Yeah. About that . . .

When I went back to review my mystery outline with fresh eyes after months of working on other projects, I poked several enormous holes in my plot right away. I knew that the set up for the mystery element of my story was complicated, but I honestly thought it was the kind of complicated that worked.

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. And, unfortunately, the process of trying to fill in those plot holes forced me to confront a few unpleasant realizations about this story and it’s future. Namely, that I’ve never felt like I’ve had a good grasp on what I wanted this story to be. I love the characters and the character arcs, I love the mystery arc, and I love the themes, but I don’t have a clue how to tie all those elements together into something cohesive.

I’m not giving up on my mystery, and I still WANT to write it. For almost a month now, I’ve had this niggling feeling that I’m on the right track, and that I’m closer to finding the right story than I’ve ever been before. I just need more time to let my subconscious mull over ideas, and I’m not going to have that time if I’m rushing to prepare for NaNo.

Instead, I’m going to spend as much of the next month as I can tinkering with a different idea. This one’s still in the brainstorming stages–and believe me, there’s A LOT of brainstorming involved–so I don’t want to say too much about it. What I will say is that I’m super excited to have something to work on, even if that something isn’t a brand new draft or a brand new revision.

The other recent change I’ve been dealing with has to do with my health. For the last three years, I’ve been working out regularly to combat some mental and physical health issues, and I’ve really come to enjoy it. I don’t do anything high impact because I’ve got too many bad joints, but the improvement I’ve seen as a result of my workouts is pretty staggering nonetheless. I always try to work out at least half the days of each month, and I was on track to meet this goal for October right up until last week.

I’ve been having trouble on and off with an old tailbone injury ever since my fiancee and I got back from Europe, but it flared up badly a week ago Sunday, and I haven’t been able to do much of anything since. Logically, I know that I have to be resting in order for the inflammation to die down and the pain to disappear, but I still hate being more or less confined my couch almost as much as I hate the thought of not meeting my workout goal. On the plus side, not being mobile has left me with plenty of brainstorming and plotting time. 😉

Because I have no idea how I’m going to feel in the next couple weeks, pain-wise or writing-wise or just about life in general, I haven’t made any long-term plans recently. Instead, I’m trying to take each day as it comes and focus on the things I can control moment-to-moment rather than week-to-week.

So far, I’m pretty happy with that approach.