Bad times, bad habits, dreams of writing

Photo of me with the first draft of Monstrous back in
 February 2017 when I thought posing with  the
book was a good idea just because I could.
My intentions were good...

Bad times and bad habits during this pandemic. Up late too much, distracting myself with bad habits and not just of the social-media-and Netflix-watching variety.

After three weeks, I finally started to crack, between working at home (or, as more often happens, attempting to work at home) on my federal government contract, the uncertainties of the pandemic caught up with me. So, anxious, depressed, frustrated and angry in turns at not knowing what is happening next week, next month—hell, even next year—I realized I am having trouble processing. Dealing. 

My partner ran the gamut of this emotion during the first two weeks (panic, anxiety, depression), while I held steadfast. I head steadfast until this past week, and the outbursts began—mainly anger and frustration and permutations of depression.

For late March I originally was slated to appear at writers' festival in New Orleans, followed by a five-day writers' retreat in High Cotton, Mississippi, with a literary mentor on-hand to guide me and three other writers in our current works-in-progress. Of course, this has all changed with the pandemic. My project? Completing the third draft of Monstrous, my second horror novel. Even as I write this lofty phrase, I know that I haven't rewritten a word of it in weeks. The closest I got was checking my notes (I have left myself of clear signposts and storybeats and observations that lead to the final page). That was last Saturday. Instead of getting charged up, I was utterly overwhelmed. I then returned to my notes later that night, in a stimulated haze, where I sat with my final scenes for the book and made cursory changes to some sentences in half-light at the kitchen counter.

What tipped me over this week was an offer to do a virtual reading of my novel for the festival that was cancelled. Seemed like a kind offer. It was. The only catch is that video recording program I wa supposed to use for the virtual reading would not load properly, and now all my visual-and-audio features are affected on various platforms. I had the displeasure of emailing the festival promoter to say that no, I  cannot find another program to record my reading, and good luck with the online reading. Quite a blow to me to have to do so, mainly because I have not done a reading of the novel in years, much less published any short fiction in six years. So, this inability to respond to the kind reading offer and having to turn it down has engorged my depression and shattered my reserves of calm and composure.

I know everyone is enduring similar problems, but my difficulties with my novel rewrite have been sporadic and building over the past year. So what to do now? Yelling, screaming, ranting and fuming has only gotten me so far. The pressure of trying adapt to a new normal in our household, trying to be several people at once - father to an eleven year old and productive employee - are at the very least difficult to bare and at their most obvious, impossible. You can't be a teacher and an employee. You can't be two people.

So as for my novel Monstrous, I am not even sure if I stand at a crossroads anymore. For crying out loud, I only need to rewrite some new scenes, rewrite the climax and denouement, and make some intricate-but-significant changes in the story itself. The book stands at about 700 pages in its current form. and most of it is quite good, in my opinion. I find myself falling asleep and finishing up the last scenes in my head before sleep overtakes me. I don't dream about the book, per se, but the characters and scenes reside in my imagination.

The manuscript in question in first draft form from February 2017.
Disclaimer: my desk is always this tidy. Why do you ask?