Ahead? Behind? Above? Below?

The past 17 days have been pretty interesting. I started reading Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones" right before October started. The book is incredible and was a really amazing kick start to this month of writing. My creative juices are flowing, I feel good about what I'm writing, I've been writing here or there or thinking about writing almost constantly, and I haven't been solely focused on my novel. Last Sunday, I spent 3 hours in the park writing about something completely different. I've written the beginnings or ideas to or entire short stories in my writing journal. I've been in a warm, lapping ocean of creativity, and honestly, I couldn't be happier. I haven't been as on top of the novel as part of me would like (the other part is really happy with the way things are just going with the flow over here). I've missed four days of novel writing, but i figured it out this morning, and if you take those days away, I'm right on track with day 13. I think the approach I've been taking for the past few weeks has worked well for me--having a main project, but working on a few little things on the side, and taking the ocassional day off--and i think it's much more sustainable over the long term, so i don't think i'm going to change anything. I'm going to continue to try to write every day, and use the weekends as my make-up time , and when I get to 50,000 words or 31 days of writing, or when I think my story is done, I'll stop.

That's all not to say that I'm not constantly ignoring my self-doubts and insecurities (I am), but I'm choosing to focus on the positives and not let the fact that maybe everything I'm writing is garbage get to me. At least I'm writing, right? And writing is what I love. So what does it matter if it sucks?

I am the hippie zen master of my writing world. Today anyway.