Madeleine Feels Overwhelmed

Have I used that title before on this blog? I must have! It could be the title of the blog.

The holidays are over, readers, and I have had this week off from work. I am working tomorrow, unfortunately. Also unfortunately, I had planned to rewrite the first story in my book--my completed first draft--this week, while I was off, to build some momentum going into the new year.

No rewrite, no momentum.

What happened? I don't know. Perhaps, as Our Dear Reader said yesterday, I just needed some time off. Perhaps. But now I am feeling the pressure.

What pressure--or pressure from where?

I am putting that pressure on myself. I know this but I can't seem to stop it! I think it was a mistake to tell people that I finished the first draft of my book. I was just so happy to have finished something, so pleased with myself, but now I feel like everyone is waiting and expecting something in the next few months.

Who's waiting? I KNOW, reader, NOBODY is waiting. Again I am setting myself up. Etc. etc.

These are the conversations I had all day long in my head...

I am most afraid of falling into bad habits again. Our Dear Reader is also most afraid of that.

I decided yesterday not to rewrite until January 1st (which is Sunday!) but still--NO rewriting until then. Instead I am reading draft one, from beginning to end. I read about 50 pages today. I have so much work to do. It is daunting. But there was a moment today when I suddenly felt excited; I suddenly felt that I was thrilled to see how this will all work out over the next few months, how I'll be able to revise these stories.

Then that moment passed.

I was reading some other blog, a food blog, and she was writing about deadlines and writing, and how she's finishing up her new book and she's so nervous about it right now, but she's come to realize that she only calms down when she's writing. I think (I hope) it will be the same for me.

I've set up a schedule, a number of pages to get through each day. I'm trying to be as concrete, as exact, as I can be. That's how the word count worked in Draft 1. Sometimes I hated the word count (oftentimes) but in the end it got me where I wanted to go.

Agnes is home! Blog writing must cease!

Today Is the Day Madeleine Begins Draft Two...

But now the day is over; it's evening, cocktail hour, and I just began my revision. I began it by reading the first few pages of my book. Then I decided that I needed to write on the Mildred--right now--so thus far I have only spent 10 minutes of my day revising my book. The rest of the day was spent rearranging my apartment with Agnes and creating my new office space, having lunch with Agnes and Our Dear Reader, visiting Our Dear Reader's apartment, returning home and catching up with the day's news, checking my email, balancing my checkbook, and talking about starting my revision.

I am recording my day's activities here on the Mildred because I want to make sure that too many days are not spent this way. Or lost this way.

Good news is that I liked the first few pages of the book that I read. "Liked" isn't the right word, really, but after reading them I felt like I could fix them and wanted to work on them. Of course I didn't work on them, I wrote on the Mildred instead, so...

This post is annoying me. I am going to end it now.