Weird experience

Feeling: Tired and Sad

For the past couple of weeks I've been wondering what I should progress with. Should I finish up a couple of short stories I've had ideas for but haven't had time to actually write, or should I plunge straight into the next novel, with an eye toward finishing the first draft by the end of the year?

I've been going back and forth. The prospect of a new novel scares me, but I feel like I really ought to simply because that's where I want to be going.

And with other things going on, I've allowed the mental discussion to drag out. Over the Labor Day weekend, we had some friends up, including their two young kids. So, I was a little stressed when I went to sleep last night. I woke up at 2, couldn't get back to sleep, so I got into the reading chair and read Perdito Street Station for an hour and a half, then lay in the dark, waiting to drop off. It took some time.

I had a dream. I was researching the novel I've been thinking about writing, running around New York City scouting locations, but whenever I tried to get pieces of paper to write my notes down, all I could get my hands on where tiny triangles and scraps.

When I woke, I had a head full of ideas. For me, one of the most productive times for ideas the border between sleep and waking, when my guard is down and anything goes in my imagination. So I had the luxury of adding onto these ideas and molding them in order to fit the story. End result: two pages of notes, and I'll be starting the novel, after I write my query letter for novel 1, rework about 200 words of Novel 1, rewrite that short story for Cthulhu 2012, and write my essay on Robert Bloch.

Other than that, I feel like shit this morning.