... or I'd like to think it is.

I hit 40k words just a little bit ago.  Finally.  I almost went to bed early because I've been dragging all day.  Instead, something told me that it would be a perfect night to check out the Write Or Die desktop program I bought before Christmas.

The premise of Write Or Die is that you can set goals--crazy or easy, or somewhere in between--for your writing, and if you don't hit those goals, then you are punished.  The punishments range anywhere from violins screeching in the background to words deleting themselves from the screen.  If you are idle for too long the screen fades from pink to red, which I found to be really annoying. So tonight, I managed to write about 1084 words in an hour, which is  some sort of record for me.  I'm excited about this new gadget to hopefully motivate me to get to the finish line.  I'm only 10k off now!  Yay!

And now I am falling asleep at the keyboard.  That's the price you pay for an hour of super-speed.

2012.  I wish I could say with any sort of conviction that I'm ready to see you go.  The truth is, I'm not.  A new year brings yet another milestone that puts distance between me and a best friend lost.  Yes, milestones work in reverse....  Instead of triumphing in growing and becoming, I am painfully aware of the minutes as they tick away and disintegrate what we once had.  The holidays are a time to spend with loved ones, a time to remember loved ones departed.  I can tell you, for me, it's true.  There is an odd comfort in missing him, in remembering and letting the tears come.  The sadness means a part of him is still here.  Maybe when he crosses my mind, it is because he is thinking of me.  I realize perhaps that's a ridiculous notion, but I cling to it anyway.

Hand-in-hand with the passing of my dear horse, this has also been the year of perseverance.  For so long I thought I would never have the opportunity to have a passion other than horses, something that I could pour myself into and possibly support my family... eventually.  We should all be so lucky--to find that thing we love to do so much we would do it for free.  Last year I realized I wanted to write something, just to see if I had it in me.  As the words found their way to the page, a long-dormant part of me awakened.  Purpose.  Life.

And then I lost Moe, and, for a while, my purpose, too. 

For so many weeks--months, even--following his passing, I stared at my laptop, fingers frozen in place.  It would take me an entire day to form a few sentences, and even those lacked the spark of joy.  Still, I pressed on, knowing there was no choice.  I kept at it until I completed my second draft in October, took a week off, and dove back in to my next installment. There was no other choice.  I could never be happy with this story left in limbo, one more thing to mourn.

2012 has been a year of dramatic change in my life and in myself.  I've not figured out how to spin it all positively, because some things simply do not have  a silver lining.  But I am still here, and I'm glad you are, too. 

May 2013 be a year of restoration and blessing for us all.  I think most of us could use that.

This endless blank screen is paralyzing.

This silence is suffocating.

At the end of the day once again, and I haven't opened this gift.

A terrible waste.

My writing had been going so well until losing Moe, my horse and best friend of 19 years. For the past several weeks I'd been making progress on the second draft of my novel, putting in 20-30 hours a week before everything crumbled around me. And now, there's nothing. The only thing I can seem to string together are old stories about time spent with my old guy. It feels like there is a dam in place somewhere deep inside of me that isn't letting anything flow unless it's about him. And it's not for lack of trying. Yesterday I sat with my latest chapter staring me in the face and I managed to add only a few sentences in as many hours. It's frustrating. Yes, I want to write about Moe and all of these things we experienced together, but I also want to finish this draft. 

A search on "grieving and writer's block" led me to this article. In the article, there was a specific quote that really resonated with me. 
Considering that a writer's creativity is part of their psychological identity, it is not surprising that what affects people as individuals, also affects them as writers.The part of me that allows me to weave tales is the part of me that is also still so much in shock with every emotion under the sun. I also read another bit in this article that makes me realize that maybe I'm in some kind of purgatory. 
Writers hurt when they can’t write. They may not realize it, but their behavior speaks volumes. Often, writers will go through a series of stages before they are ready to write again and these stages are similar to the Kübler-Ross stages of grief in psychology. In other words, when writers can’t write they grieve, so it makes sense that the stages of writer’s block would parallel the stages of grief.I am a writer; whether you consider me one or not is of no consequence to me. I know what I am, and the above quote is revealing itself to be true. It's painful not to write when you know it's one of the reasons you're here.

So if you wonder why I can't "get over it already", first of all, you don't "get it" at all. But also, I am determined to keep the words from petrifying within me and taking away my other great passion. The loss of two loves within the same week is surely more than I want to deal with now.

Writing for an audience is oppressive.  Writing with an audience is unnerving to the point of paralysis.  I can't stand for the husband to look over and read whatever it is I'm currently working on.  Maybe it goes back to the time a few years ago when I allowed him to read something of which I was very proud, and he promptly turned to me and, in all seriousness, suggested I needed therapy.  No, you goon, that was my therapy.  Yeah, perhaps that's it.  THAT GUY officially is no longer allowed to have an opinion on or even catch an eyeful of anything I type.

To be in my personal 'writing happy place', I prefer dead quiet or music appropriate to my mood.  I do not, on the other hand, find myself to do well with constant traffic in and out of my room, door slams, running cats/barking dogs, wrestling, or video game sound effects.  It's summer vacation.  With four kids home all day every day, imagine the impact these strict parameters have on my word count.  Mmmhmm.

And what do I do when stories need to be told now or never, but they're completely separate from what I'm working so hard to complete.  First world problems, absolutely, but still new and confusing to me.