You may find this hard to believe, admiring me as you do, but I’ve gotten lazy. I watched a video about sleep problems on YouTube recently, and it occurred to me that instead of lying in bed as I am wont to do in the morning, trying to get back to sleep (and generally failing), I should just get up and work on my novel. Maybe I would a) get to sleep more easily at night, and b) actually make progress on this Erling book. My work so far has been mostly thinking about it and plotting.

And what do you know? It worked. I’m sleeping better and I’m actually getting text written. I’ve made progress every day this week. Yesterday I wrote a big scene that even kind of gave me chills. One of the worst things about indolence is that you forget the rewards inherent in the labor.

It’s also a little embarrassing, like one of those times when you’re a kid when you’re trying to do something the way you think it should be done, and your parent says, “I think you should try it this way.” And you say no, because you know how you want to do it. And finally, in desperation, you try it their way, and it turns out they knew more than you did. Proving you’re not as grownup as you thought you were.

Even when you’re over 70 and your folks are dead.

Anyhow, I like how the book’s coming at this point. I was looking for a fantasy element to interweave in the plot, because historical fantasy is what I do, after all, and I think I found just the thing. It comes from northern folklore and feeds into a theme I wanted to explore in the book anyway. Creepy, and with just a touch of contemporary commentary.

In short, I feel like a writer again.