For most of this month (if you believe the universe exerts influences in our daily lives), the planet Mercury is in retrograde, a term that astrologists use to define a period where a planet appears to move backwards across the heavens; in this case, Mercury, the planet of communication. It’s an optical illusion, but seems to coincide with all sorts of miscommunications, including, it seems, the act of writing.
While I’m not a big believer in this sort of hocus locus, I have to admit that all my efforts at getting, well, anything done this week seem to have been thwarted at every turn. It seems that every day, there have been unanticipated (and upsetting) distractions requiring my immediate attention. And while I pride myself on my writing schedule and producing a consistent daily output, this week I ended up with half as much as much written as I’d planned. And next week I will be in a class, so my writing time and focus will be greatly constrained.
It might be easier to just give up and blame the lack of my productivity on Mercury Retrograde, but I refuse to quit. I’ll keep plugging away, A few paragraphs in the morning, a few more at noon, maybe a page or two after the workshop. Not my usual writing method, but every little bit of progress moves the page count up and the novel closer to being finished.
I refuse to succumb.
