So lately, I’ve been having trouble focusing. Not in all areas, mind you: I’m doing well keeping up with the elliptical and my daily walks. My daily installment of Hellblazer is coming along without much fuss. The husband and I have dropped both DirecTV and our land line, and we’ve been using Netflix like it’s going out of style — I’m just now getting to watch Arrested Development for the first time, and we’re working through House of Cards too. Great stuff. Also, movies: World War Z was this past weekend, and Man of Steel the weekend before.
So it’s not like I don’t have plenty to do outside of my day job. But I haven’t been able to focus on reading. I read a page or two, get distracted and do something else. Even if I’m wanting to read the book, my brain is still churning a million miles an hour, thinking of other things.
Namely writing. But instead of THINKING about writing, my brain is pre-writing: in the past week-and-a-half my brain has been swimming in the world-building of Telepathic Soulmates***, working out details for future fixes of that draft while also trying to find the real story in the sequel, Prison Planet, for which I now have a promising arc for, thanks to my good friend Michele. And lastly, I’m writing (yes, writing) a page-a-day, but it’s what I’m calling Not a Prequel Novel. Because I’m not going into it with any sort of real STORY in mind. Rather, I want to take two characters who are supporting characters in Telepathic Soulmates and tell their story. Their story takes place chronologically before Telepathic Soulmates, so it gives me the opportunity I need and want to really explore the world-building in ways I won’t get to do in revision. So it’s fun. I think.
It is funny: when I’m REALLY into whatever I’m writing, I don’t have much brainpower for reading. Which goes a long way in explaining how, when I was book-blogging and reading all the time, I didn’t have any brainpower for writing. The book blog has been closed for month now, and I’m just now able to pore my energies into creating my own fiction instead of absorbing the fiction of others.
Don’t get me wrong: writers have to do both. I’m just trying to find the balance.
*** = as always, these titles are actually aliases for the novels I’m working on, not their REAL titles. Except for Not a Prequel Novel, because it doesn’t have a title and what I would call it would make no sense to anyone who hasn’t read Telepathic Soulmates
Calico Writes 
I get into these non-focusing moods sometimes. It can be really bad too. Like anything beyond a 3-minute youtube video is too much for me, never mind a whole book. So I just play a lot of fetch with the cat. Hope you end up getting something out of all of this pre-writing at least!
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Playing with the cat is an excellent way to spend time. 🙂
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I have a hard time focusing on reading sometimes, too. I could have all the time in the world to read, but if I’m simply not in the mood, for one reason or another, all my poor books get ignored…
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Usually these moods hit me earlier in the year, but lately, oy!
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Did you like “World War Z”? I thought it was OK, but seriously, it would have been a lot more honest to say “We borrowed the title from Max Brooks’ novel” instead of saying “Based on the novel” 🙂
Oh, and my husband and I have been watching “Arrested Development,” too. Almost done with season 1 😛
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I think we’re slightly over halfway through season one. 🙂
I liked it. One of the best things I’ve heard about the movie was that it felt like it was one of those stories that COULD’VE been told in Brooks’ book, which is a neat way of thinking about it. I also liked how, SPOILERS, the climax wasn’t achieved with all out violence, but rather thinking it through and using science to figure shit out.
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That’s the way my brain works as well–if I’m focused on writing, I can’t settle down to read anything, and vice versa.
I didn’t do much of either last week or the week before, however, having rediscovered an excellent time-wasting device from my past: my brother’s old Game Boy Advance. I was playing this old RPG that was a lot of fun, despite the fact I was only just figuring out what in the hell the story was supposed to be after a week of playing the thing. The fact it’s a sequel to a game I’ve never played and don’t own doesn’t help.
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Right now, I’m all about reading my Hugo Voter’s packet, which means no writing is getting written. Oh well… the voting has a deadline. My writing does not. 🙂
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