Writing mode

I received an email this afternoon requesting a progress report on my manuscript. It read "When the hell are you going to send this to me?" Just kidding. That's what it said in my head. It was more like, "How are the revisions going?"

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