I'm not at work today!

So it is becoming apparent that I blog about once a week - generally on Saturdays. Soas not to leave y'all in the lurch this weekend, I thought I'd post a little early this week. That's because I'm going on vacation. Yep. That's right - at this very moment, I am not working. And I will not be working for the next few days. I'm going to a glorious place with no blackberry service and no internet. Can't wait!!

As y'all know, it's been a hectic few months for me preparing for this trial. It's meant pressure, lots of long hours, and doing whatever is necessary to help out the trial team. Even if it that meant counting boxes full of documents.* At the end of each day I would drag myself home. Sometimes mentally exhausted, sometimes physically exhausted, sometimes emotionally exhausted, but usually all three.

I'm a big fan of the motto that writer's write. But when I got home at the end of these days, the best I could do was zap a lean cuisine and flop in front of the couch. Usually I would just go straight to bed and read. I felt bad for not working on WIP, but I just didn't have the energy. I realized that it isn't about having the time, or not being tired, it's about being emotionally able to write. These past few weeks, I couldn't place myself in my character's worlds. I couldn't dig deep enough into their emotions. I was too flat. It wasn't that words wouldn't come (those can be forced) but feelings wouldn't come. And those can't really be forced.

I realized that when I write, I become my characters - all of them. It's like a dream where supposedly you are everyone. I think that's why I have a hard time visualizing my characters, because I'm so deep inside them (even the ones that aren't the POV character) that I just don't know what they look like. I know how the feel, how their emotions manifest themselves physically, but not appearance.

So that's why I haven't been writing/revising. And that's why I'm so looking forward to this weekend - nothing but time to sleep, read, hang out, and write in a beautiful setting. More than enough time to recouperate, and plenty of time to get fidgety about writing so that I have no choice but to revise.

With that in mind, my goal for the long weekend is simply to revise the dread middle of the book. This might take wholesale rewriting of about 10-20k. I'd love to finish revising the whole thing. But I'll be happy just to make progress.

I'm looking forward to recovering from the past few months, of slowing life down a little bit. It's supposed to be beautiful weather, and my spring clothes order from Old Navy came in the mail and everything fits. I can't wait to sit in the sun, look at the mountains (that pic is the view from the porch of the cabin), and breathe.

I hope everyone else has a wonderful long weekend. Take time for yourself - enjoy the break of spring. And happy writing!
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* no lie, I spent 13+ hours on Monday counting the number of pages in boxes. Turns out there were over 20,000 pages. Not all counted by hand... but most.