I felt like I was busted. I have been taking a long break since I got my grades turned in. I was just so burned out that I couldn't even look at the manuscript. I needed some time to veg- out and have a bit of a holiday. This included lots of sleep, knitting, and Netflix. I may post pictures of my completed knitting projects soon. Now I need to get back to work! Back to writing mode.
I've been thinking about what I envision for 2014, and although I am not sure I can rise at four a.m. to write, I would indeed like to develop the kind of routine and mental willpower that Haruki Murakami describes in his Paris Review interview :
"When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometers or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. But to hold to such repetition for so long—six months to a year—requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity." Haruki Murakami quoted in Paris Review
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