I wrote last night

Once upon a time, a long time ago...

I was a prolific writer.

I wrote in my journal most of the day, constantly scribbling as if an observer of the world outside of it. These days, I regularly misplace my journal and write, on average, once a week. Facebook seems to have replaced those journal entries and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I used to write 10-12 articles a week for the newspaper. In those days, I never had the energy left to write anything else.

One summer, I thought I had found the best job ever. They fired me after a month, because they had hired me to be their in-house writer and the VP decided he'd rather have an artist. I boosted my confidence my writing a third volume to my paranormal chick lit series (series nicknamed Fashion and Fiends) -- 170,000 words in about 35 days.

I can write a press release in 20 minutes, but my own résumé stumps me.

I wrote a ten-page paper in French on the political parties of the moderate right in three days during my Thanksgiving break.

But I have not written a single word on my second volume of Fashion and Fiends since June? July? Whenever we launched our critique group via GLVWG. I had about six chapters then, and since we were submitting 20 pages a month, I knew those six chapters would last through December. And here I am, in December (almost), with no more chapters. This book has my favorite tentative title (Courting Apparitions) but the hardest plot. It's a ghost story and ghosts present a lot of limitations. In addition, the first draft spent the first 200 pages with the main character moping around doing nothing, because of his grief for the dead person...

Of course, Stephenie Meyer's New Moon has the main character moping for 200 pages. Maybe Étienne just needs to rebuild a motorcycle and hang out with a werewolf...

Well, last night, I wrote about 400 words. The novel I wrote after I got fired... That one needs to be split in two: one half for the ridiculous fairy plot line (which will get saved for another project) and the other half for the actual plot line where evil witches destroy the balance of the universe and a non-magical woman has to stop them. I've dickered with the plot and did a scene last night where the heroine waits for her missing husband, in a venue where she thinks he has to attend and her disappointment when he doesn't...

In my "old days," before returning to school and raising a five-year-old daughter, I could polish off 5,000 words a night, almost every night of the week.

I miss those days, but the other activities-- school, work, parenting, the non-profit boards I'm on-- indirectly do make me a better writer.