Is It An Update?

For at least an hour I sat in my regular writing spot away from the house not writing. Instead I was agonizing over a character’s name. I changed it five or six times before today so this was particularly frustrating.

The original, from too many years ago to think about, was Darian. I love it. Unfortunately it doesn’t fit the naming culture I’ve worked out. Also I must love the letter A because most of the major characters have it as either the first or second letter of their names. Also, there are too many with the same vowel sound in the first syllable. Did I mention I’m a creature of habit? Well it’s a problem in this case.

He’s not the only one giving me problems. Another doesn’t have an A but it still rhymes with too many others. UGH!

So instead of catching up on writing the story, I’m trying to come up with unique monikers. Oh and I suck at it. I narrowed it down to fourteen names but none of them really grabbed me. Well one was awesome but I am saving it for a different story. Writer problems right?

Finally, I came up with something I am almost positive will stick. Ironically it’s a variation of the original. I started changing the spelling and substituting letters until one stood out. I’m not posting it because I need to hold onto it for a while and let it make up my mind for me, or not.

As for actual writing, I’m still world building and half writing scenes that spring up from it. The process has been slow because I’ve been busy with other things.

Last week threw me off because it was the last week of school, which meant two early out days. This in turn meant my writing days were shot. It also meant the house was much louder than normal.

I keep thinking it will take forever for me to adjust to it but then I remember I go out to write in a place that gets packed with loud people at lunch and I still manage to work. Perhaps my kid being home all the time will actually be helpful, assuming she doesn’t interrupt every ten minutes.

I wrote several short stories – flash fiction actually. Two of them I posted recently. One titled Tauria and the other was The Key. The third isn’t where I want it to be but I’ll polish it up soon and post it. Writing shorts while working on a novel makes me feel like me again, almost normal.

All this writing happened despite a return of massive back pain. Something has either happened to the disk site or it’s typical pain to feel at this point after surgery. I go see the surgeon on the 7th and get an x-ray. Hopefully he’ll say the pain will go away. Or maybe put me in physical therapy. Either way, I’m not going to let it stop me from writing.

Oddly enough, the one thing that makes the pain better is going to the gym. I have to be careful not to overdo it but it helps a lot. The people who work at Planet Fitness probably think I’m addicted since I go every day. My reasons are silly. I’m not an outside kind of person. I do like going outdoors, but in limited doses. Besides, the elliptical is better for my back than regular walking.

So there you have it. I’m not sure if this is an update of simply me complaining. It’s probably somewhere in between. Now I’m going to try to write something other than a list of names or blog post!