Groove

Francesca Woodman

Two weeks ago, I slipped down the stairs -- because who doesn't love doing that, really -- and bruised my tailbone. The bruises have only just shown themselves, and it was kind of a relief to see them, and say "oh hey, that really did happen, and I'm not quite nine hundred and three years old after all."

I suppose I'm bad when it comes to believing in things unseen, sorry Jesus.

I started this blog a week ago, with its title, and now I'm like "Well, what the heck was I going to talk about," and I'm pretty sure it was this: I wrote eight days in a row on the sixth F&M book (clearly a groove), and made a ton of progress, while also moderately liquefying my brain in the process. Last weekend was writing; this weekend just past was for recovery (which apparently involved a lot of Expanse episodes -- they've entered book three, where things get INtense. It also involved Solo with my peeps -- I thought it was a great escape, very fun).

I used to think that writers had to write every day. I don't find that to be useful any more -- though your mileage may vary. For me, I fill up, I write, my brain gets empty, and then I fill back up so I can put out again (dirty).

Of course, now it's hard to sit for long periods of time. I find myself needing to stand and move a little more, lest my black and blue behind get very angry with me. This results in finding another kind of groove, the one where you put Madonna on the turntable and relive your youth.

But then Madonna helps fill that well, too, and the book words rush back and you're excited over structure and mothers and daughters and grandmothers and you think, if you are very-impossibly lucky, you will be able to pull the book out of your head and put it onto the paper exactly as you see it.

Do you know how rare that is?

Will it happen?

We don't know! I hope the suspense lasts!

But it sure has been going well so far. I never love the middle of novels, but this one is flying and singing, and maybe it's because it's the last book, that all the worries have fallen away, and maybe it's because I know the characters so well now that they just do their thing when I've got them on the page. These books have taught me a lot.

As I write F&M #6, the fifth book is soon to launch -- I've seen the cover art for The Quartered Heart and it's beautiful and you will not love it as much as I do, but I hope you will look at it and believe it is a book you need to read. TQH is about love and loss, it's about discovery, and how success can feel very much like failure. It is about losing, and picking yourself up and carrying on anyhow. It is a book about life, the universe, and some very angry jackals.

Soon.