Cap'n's Log

I have been clocking up the words so all is, one could say, going to plan. But I am not exactly enjoying the process. Truth to tell, other than the grim satisfaction of updating my word count each time I have bashed out the required number, I am feeling quite miserable about it, and the deeper into story I go, the more something or other (I really don't know what) presses on me and in me. It feels strange and personal, like grief - a big word, I know, but I can't think of another that fits. I have not plotted out my story at all but am writing from scratch, working with an idea and allowing it to unfold as it goes along. But it is not a natural, organic unfolding. If nothing emerges, then I make something happen or find something or other to bring to utterance because otherwise I would fall behind, and I have committed to the game, am playing it seriously. There is a sense, though, that in pushing on in the direction it is going I am leaving something else behind, and that something else may be the real, the actual heart of the thing that first suggested itself to me. I am making myself believe that it (the story behind the story) will hold fast.

And I am very tired. It is tiring to do this every day. No strength to spare and the cupboard is perilously bare.