Jenn Neal

This month as been a lot. It has been a lot of sitting in our living room watching Mojo snooze on his bed while his eyes try to guilt me into letting him on the couch. Occasionally, it’s been trying to stop him from digging, or jumping, or running. It’s a lot of hunkering on the floor staring blankly at my first draft of the Bone Thieves project and wishing I had something to feed it. It’s a lot of Josh playing records and video games while I stare into space, anxiety stealing my hunger while I try to figure out how I’m going to make it through the next few weeks, wondering why the words won’t come.

As I said in my March update, Mojo had a Total Hip Replacement about 6 weeks ago. He is such a stubborn dog that we knew this would be hard. But I don’t think we were prepared for just how difficult it would be. We’ve had some significant setbacks (including broken dog teeth, canine panic attacks, chewed up playstation consoles, more sutures, and having to pack most of our living room into the garage), but hopefully those are in the past and we can keep moving forward. Needless to say I’ve been so distracted.

Every synapse is pushing to write, to release some of the creativity stored in my brain. But it just doesn’t come. I can’t quite shake the feeling that I should be writing. Or that I’m not moving forward. But I’m trying to remember that everyone needs a break. And honestly, I owe it to myself not to feel guilty because life is so stressful right now.

I have a weird relationship to writing. I want to write for a living more than I want almost anything else. Nothing feeds my soul like writing, and my characters feel like a part of me. But there is always this push. Like there’s a timeline even though I know there isn’t. And it makes me feel like I need to write in every moment of free time, especially now that I’m querying and faced with the harsh reality that I have no idea what will happen to the book I’ve just finished. On top of that, it is overwhelming to start over on a totally new book. There is so much to do, and so much unhealthy comparison of this new book to the one I just finished editing for the seven millionth time. Plus, it is devastating to imagine how long it will take me to write it. I just can’t shake the feeling of falling behind. But ultimately, I know I should just do what I love because I love it.

So that’s what I’m doing. I’m writing what I can, whether that means a few words or a few thousand. I am pushing forward, because each word forms this whole piece.

I guess on the bright side, the hectic behavior of March and April had allowed me to devour a lot of books. Full disclosure, about half of these were audiobooks I listened to on my way to and from work, and while cleaning and doing household things.

Books read in March/April so far: