Those who have been following me for a while might remember that last year I participated in an event to write and edit a complete short story in 24 hours. A book was published with the stories from all the participants, including myself (link in left sidebar if you’re interested). It’s hard to believe, but almost a year has passed since then and the next such event has been scheduled for August.

I had so much fun doing the last one that of course I immediately signed up to do it again this year. I feel like with the way I’ve been struggling lately, this might serve as a good change of pace to kickstart my creative flow. I came out of last year’s even with not just a short story, but an idea for a new novel (waiting patiently for it’s time when the current book and its sequels are completed). Hopefully doing it again this year will have a similar effect, since my funk continues.

I did make it to my Saturday writing meeting this week. It’s been three weeks since I last attended and it was lovely to reconnect with my friends there. There were many questions about how I’ve been, which was lovely and touching. I really need to get better at keeping how much I enjoy being with the group front of mind and use that when my energy levels are fighting against me going. We had a post-meeting activity planned too, which was another reminder of how much I enjoy these people even outside the context of writing. Thanks, past Erin, for joining this group.

I’ve also made some small progress on the novel editing. I switched the placement of two events in my rewrites of the opening and it suddenly feels as if it’s flowing better. It’s like I removed some critical shovelful of dirt from that new channel I’ve been digging, and suddenly the river is willing to move the way I want it to. The edits of that chapter aren’t complete, but it’s now feeling like maybe I can get it to do what I want it to after all, which I was seriously beginning to doubt. I’m going to spend some more time on it tomorrow and I’m daring to hope that maybe I can finish that chapter and move on.

So again, no major updates this week but there are little things giving me some hope that I’m working my way through the depressive bout I’ve been in. I’m finding myself wanting to work on my novel again. That obviously doesn’t always equate to actually working on it, but wanting to is the first step. When I get into these funks I always know I *should* be working on things, but there’s no actual desire to do so. The returning of the desire always indicates the returning of normalcy. I’m looking forward to that.