Astral

i feel the beat of your heart in 3/4 time, waltzing down my spine.

night descends upon us in a minor key. the darkness is a cocoon, a cradle for new things birthed in the night.

i unlatch, and my soul stretches to you like the fingers of a nebula.

--- 

It's been a little over a month since I started my New Year's Resolution of waking up early to write 1 hour per day. In some ways, it's been like picking up running again, waking up muscles you haven't used in a while. In terms of my daily word count output, it's not great by any means... but it's still better than what I was doing before, which was months-long stretches of zeros punctuated by random word-vomits over a rare weekend. Since I started this, I've churned out roughly 5000 words for Med Rom Com.

I'm still out of practice, and I can tell. Some of this might be due to how absolute shite my attention span has gotten. During the first draft of EP, I would get into these writing spells that I could only describe as submergence. On a free weekend, I could sit at my table writing for hours, then emerge with a full chapter that sang and vibrated. These days, one hour without looking at my phone or browsing the Internet is a win. The current process feels like writing with a pen that is on its last dredges of ink, with a bunch of sudden spurts and stops, retracing over what was already written.

We'll see if I can maintain this routine into a long-term habit. I'm hoping the writing gets more instinctive and natural, and my word count picks up as a result. 

I've been working primarily on the first draft of Med Rom Com instead of doing EP revisions. With Med Rom Com, I'm not only trying to cultivate a habit of writing daily, but also I've missed the fun of discovering the characters and chipping away at a new story when you write a first draft for the first time. I'm trying not to put too much pressure on myself -- because at the end of the day, no one cares if I write. I'm doing this for me, and damnit I'm not going to let it become a chore.

This month (February), I kind of picked up a second resolution -- this one I'm less confident I'll be able to maintain. But I'm going to aim to do a 30 minute treadmill run every day. I'm in my early thirties, and I've read Reddit threads about advice that people would give people in their 20s or 30s. Examples include using sunscreen daily (Check - been doing this for years) and seeing a dentist regularly (Check). One of the biggest ones is keeping up with physical activity/exercise. I work in the medical field -- how many times have I told patients they need to exercise more? Time to put my money where my mouth is. Considering that Alzheimer's runs in my family, it'll be good for my brain as well as my heart.