Africa

I was tired yesterday.

I’m about to head to my first follow-up appointment with the surgeon this morning–far earlier than I would prefer, but best to get it over and done with so I can get on with my day. Heavy sigh. I have a lot of questions…and am hoping to get some more information about wearing shirts and so forth. There’s a part of me that’s hoping I get a smaller brace today, but I am also aware that’s probably magical thinking on my part. The physical therapy is going to last for three months, and that’s going to wreak havoc on my daily schedule. I am hoping that I’ll be able to not miss a lot of work for it–or come up with ways to work around it–which may not be that easy. I am starting to get antsy with so little ability to be at the computer and type. Having a rambunctious high-energy kitten that I am having to try to fend off with the one good hand doesn’t help, either. He’s very sweet and I hate not giving him the attention he wants, but if he wants flea medicine and vet appointments and food, Daddy has to be able to work. And my typing time is limited as the left hand/arm tires quickly.

I haven’t worked on the book since starting it the other day, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot (and about a lot of other things I want to write/am writing/editing), which is part of the problem with having so much down time and a creative mind with a touch of attention-deficiency…I start getting ideas as my mind wanders as I sit there. I was able to focus on reading my current book for a couple of hours yesterday, but didn’t get as far as one would under ordinary circumstances. I do have trouble remembering the day of the week, and as far as the date is concerned–that ship has long since sailed. (I know the first is coming and am prepared to spend some time paying bills at some point soon.) I am enjoying the book very much; I just wish my brain had more bandwidth than is currently on hand. I am genuinely worn out by ten every night, and I’ve been sleeping remarkably well. It’s also cold here this morning, and I have to go out into it wearing sweat pants. Yay.

We’re still enjoying Bodies, and it’s very like Dark–very clever, high production values, terrific acting, the questions of morality and fate and free will; very deep and very interesting. I am also starting to get bored, to be honest, which is a novel concept for me. The lack of focus so I can read for long periods of time is seriously being felt here, believe me. I am going to try to read more of my book today, and then I might have to go back to another volume of Alfred Hitchcock Presents–short stories work better when you have no ability to stay focused for a long period of time. I rewatched The Terminator yesterday–what a remarkably well written and done film it was. It is also, with the recent rise of AI, unnerving; the future Kyle and the Terminator come back to the present from `was 2029. Eep! Funny how back then 2029 seemed so far away, but then it kind of was. When that movie was released, I would have never believed that I’d still be alive in 2029–I still might not be, of course, but my longevity is completely out of my control to some extent; who knows how much or how little we control our own destinies? One of the key concepts of Bodies is that we don’t really have free will, as much as we would like to believe we do, and there’s something to that, I think. Sure, we make our choices, but are the choices presented actually our choices?

Deep thoughts from a Netflix series!

I was also thinking–as I am wont to do when my mind is free to wander–about whether I am an artist or not. Literature is an art, after all; we may not work with paints or oils or clay or marble or ceramic, but we are making art when we write. I’ve always been reluctant to call myself an artist or writing “making art”–the only authors I ever see or hear calling themselves artists or their work art tend to be very well-educated literary writers. It always felt inorganic and pompous to consider myself an artist and my work art. I write genre fiction, for one thing, and for another I write about queer people mostly. (Oh, the disdain I used to get from the literary writers when I worked at Lambda Book Report and they discovered that my forthcoming novel was crime fiction! I think that kind of hardened me against literary fiction and literary writers–not entirely true; some are absolutely lovely, but it certainly left a bad taste in my mouth about being overly pompous about what I do; I kind of embraced being a genre hack. I’m not ashamed to write crime fiction and horror; nor am I am ashamed of my erotica past.) But thinking about myself as an artist–the more I thought about it, the more I was sure I fit the description and perhaps what I do is make art, after all; but at the same time worry that thinking of it in that way will increase the pressure on me to do good work, and the last thing I need is more stress in my life.

But I am excited to get back to work on the new book. I really enjoy writing–which was also something else I was thinking about over the past few days. Writing is work, but I love to do it (publishing, on the other hand…it’s the necessary evil that follows the work I enjoy), which is another reason I don’t think of myself in terms of art/artist. But writing requires just as much focus and dedication as any other kind of art–and we are painting pictures with words rather than oils or watercolors, aren’t we?

Some interesting thoughts on a Wednesday morning. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I may check in again later.