work Archives - Laurell K. Hamilton

Down the Rabbit Hole and into the Maze:

The White Rabbit from The Nursery Alice by John Tenniel, Held and digitised by the British Library, and uploaded to Flickr Commons. A higher resolution version may be available for purchase from BL Images Online, imagesonline.bl.uk, reference 065443

I fell down a rabbit hole this week, not a literal one, but a literary one. No, I didn’t reread ALICE IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carrol, but that’s where the original idea of following a strange rabbit down it’s hole and falling into something, or someplace, totally unexpected came from. I first heard the term ‘rabbit hole’ used for writing by Emma Bull on a panel at Archon, a science fiction convention here in St. Louis. I was in the audience back then because I had yet to sell a single story of my own. I had read and loved Emma’s book, “War for the Oaks,” and listened to any bits of writer wisdom from her with great attention.

She and her husband Will Shetterly both explained that for a writer to fall down the rabbit hole meant an idea, or subplot, that led you off your plotted path. They seemed to think rabbit holes were always a distraction and the writer should climb out and get back on their plot path as soon as possible.

Years later with my own writing group, The Alternate Historians, we continued to use the term in much the same way. If you are a writer that plots and outlines heavily then rabbit holes are truly a bad thing, but if you are an organic writer like me, sometimes the rabbit is right. I believe George R. R. Martin calls them gardeners as opposed to architects.

What does it mean to be an organic writer? For me, it means that sometimes all I know is the first sentence of a short story, but I’m going to sit down and write that sentence and see where it leads me. It means that once the world building is done, or sometimes in the midst of it, I’ll often start writing the first draft of a book because I learn things about my world and my characters by actually writing. What I learn goes into the character building, or even the world building. I often find that what looks good in notes, or plot outline, doesn’t work at all when you are in the middle of the story. I’m very much a throw it out if my characters have a better idea that comes more naturally to them and their world. A word of warning here: do not edit heavily as you write your first draft, especially as a beginning writer. You do not know how your process works yet, so don’t do what I do, be cautious, save everything, and edit once you have a complete draft.

For an organic writer chasing rabbits down their holes can lead to new ideas that help grow your world, your characters, and just make it all into your own Wonderland. Or it can be just a distraction that wastes your time, energy, and derails your book just like I was warned all those years ago. The problem is that you can’t tell the difference from the outside of the hole. You have to crawl inside and risk falling down and down, before you know if you’ll be talking to a hookah-smoking caterpillar, or just trapped in the dark, covered in dirt.

In other words, the hole could lead you to things you need to discover as a writer, or it could just get you lost and covered in rabbit poo. To find out which way it will go you have to chase the rabbit and be willing to climb into the dark and follow where it leads.

The Anita Blake novels, and the Merry Gentry series, have both benefitted greatly from me chasing rabbits through their tunnels. It has led me to some of my most creative and innovative ideas, or most poignant scenes, but it’s also led me to the dark end of a lot of tunnels, where I had to dig my way out, or back track and cut out all the writing I’d done while I was in that particular scene “tunnel”. I’ve lost a week, or more of work this way. Hundreds, if not thousands of scenes, characters, all useless in the end, but I’m still not certain that writing out the useless bits doesn’t shake something lose that I need.

When I was in high school, I read an article by Ray Bradbury, I believe it was exerts from, The Zen of Writing, but I’m no longer certain. I do know that I translated his wonderful, and much more poetic advice into this, “Every writer has about ten thousand words of crap in them, so you better start writing early and get the bad stuff out, so you can get to the good stuff.” I think sometimes books are like that for me, I need to write the stuff that doesn’t work, then cut it, to find the stuff that does work. I can’t prove that this is true, and maybe I just tell myself that to feel better about all the lost pages, but I can’t prove that isn’t true, either. I’ve written over thirty novels this way, so I’m not going to change my creative process, it works for me, but I’ll admit it’s imprecise. I think all creativity is imprecise, if you could measure it out to be precise it would be science, not art, though there is more than a bit of art in most good science.

I don’t mind following the white rabbit when I know that’s what I’m doing in a book. I’ll run the new idea, or scene, up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes. If they don’t then I delete it, probably put it in an outtake file, and go back to the original plot point where I diverged and keep writing. What I do mind is when I don’t realize it’s a rabbit I’m chasing and I think its more unicorn. For a unicorn, which is an amazing idea that will make the book even better, I’ll drop everything and give chase, but I hate it when I see a horn and think unicorn, but it turns out to be more jackalope.

Last night when I finished writing I began to suspect I had fallen down the rabbit hole. I was hoping I was wrong, because my deadline was upon me. I went to bed hoping I’d wake up and it would all make sense, but instead I knew it didn’t. It wasn’t a rabbit hole, it was a rabbit warren full of tunnels and it was all dark, dirty, and even the rabbits had fled. I had to own that I would be throwing out about twenty-five pages, or more. Days worth of work when I honestly can’t afford to lose the time, or the pages, if I am to make my deadline, but there it was, the brutal truth. I was trapped in the maze in the dark, and the only thing I could do was try to find my plot thread in the dark, and follow it back to the last point where the book really worked.

As a beginning writer it was easier for me to tell when the plot thread broke, because the writing wasn’t as good, but as I’ve had more practice, I’ve gotten better. In fact, I’ve gotten so good that my writing is great even when the character development, plot, or world building, has derailed. It all reads well, but that doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t make it the best the book, the characters, the world, can be.

I had to go back through this morning and read, painfully, where that character wouldn’t have done/said that. Oh, there’s where the magic system that I have so carefully built and explained to the reader totally imploded. Yes, it was an exciting scene, riveting, but it isn’t the way the magic works, so out it goes. Okay, so that whole scene goes. Wait, that entire plot line is out. It’s far too late in the book to throw in something this big; it will distract from the mystery which we have to solve in ex-number of chapters. I’m not an obsessive outliner, but I do plot my mysteries out in broad strokes, the closer to the end of the book, the more that outline is filled in and eventually becomes fixed. This close to the end of a novel I have to keep my eye on the goal, which is to solve the mystery in a fair manner that helps the reader feel that all the clues were there. I dislike other writers who cheat by pocketing clues and just almost lying to the reader, so I try to play fair myself. Yes, I am aware that some really big names in mystery hide clues from the reader all the time. I adore Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, but Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie are both guilty of hiding clues to keep the reader in the dark. Sometimes it works brilliantly, but it’s still a bugaboo for me as a reader myself, so I try not to do it to other people.

So here I am in the maze, which is the worst possible kind of rabbit hole. Not only am I in the dark, covered in dirt and maybe worse, but it’s not just a straight tunnel. I can’t just back up a few pages and keep writing, because there are tunnels leading off the main tunnel, so many lefts and rights that I’m not entirely certain which is the main tunnel, or if I came this way, or that.

I begin to suspect it isn’t rabbit droppings on my shoes, but Minotaur crap, and that’s much worse for the book, and for my deadline. My plot thread has broken off in the maze somewhere. I only know it’s not ahead of me, so I can’t keep writing the book from here, I must go back. How far back? I’m not really sure, but I have to find where the thread broke, so I can follow it back and rewrite from there, because the thread still in my hand leads to the heart of the maze and the ruin of the book.

I know I will find my way out of the maze, because I’ve been lost in here before. I know I will find my broken thread and trace it back, and then write myself out of the maze. I know, because I’ve done this before, and that means I can do it again. That’s really what an experienced writer has over a beginning writer, we know that we can do it, because we’ve done it. Success is like a shield to protect you from the monsters, both the outside obstacles and your own self-doubt.

So for all you fellow writers out there both experienced and not, if you find yourself lost in the dark take courage. First try to just back up, if it works, then it’s a rabbit hole, and you’ll soon be out. Dust the dirt off and keep writing. If you realize that some of the tunnel was great ideas, then dig your way up and out, and keep writing from there. If the worst happens and you realize you’re standing in the middle of the maze with a broken thread in your hand, and Minotaur crap on your shoes, then keep moving. You will find the other half of your plot thread, eventually. Once you find it, grab it and drop the other end, because the other end only leads to the heart of the maze where the Minotaur waits to smash you to has-been, or never-was pulp, and dance with castanets on your creative soul.

New Blog: Filling up the Emptiness

You know that empty spot inside you? The one that feels like a bottomless pit that’s as wide as the Grand Canyon? If you don’t have one of these desolate places inside you, then you don’t need to read any further. Enjoy your happy and issue free life! But if you are like many of us and understand exactly what I mean, welcome.

I don’t know if I had the empty spot, before my mother died, but since I was only six at the time it’s hard for me to judge. Whatever the reason that caused that dark space inside me that nothing seemed to fill up, I did try to fill it up with many things. I tried books and reading, then I found writing and that worked for a long time. Then I fell in love for the first time and I thought that would do it, but no love outside of ourselves can completely fill that void. Years later, the marriage broke, and I vowed I’d give up on love, but dating led to falling in love with a friend. I thought this is it, this will work, and it did, it has, it is, but it doesn’t fill up the emptiness. Love is a light in the dark, but it does not destroy it all. I say again, no love outside of ourselves can fill that space of need. If religion fills that void for you, then wonderful, but though I am devoted to my path of faith it does not fill the hole. What Deity showed me, was the isses that dug the hole in the first place, and how I might heal the damage. If I was willing to work hard and experience most of the pain again, then I could heal, but it wasn’t guaranteed. If your God, or Goddess, promises you an easy path, and surety of success then you may not be hearing the voice of God, but the voice of something you want to be true. True faith is a path filled with many stones and thorns, because it is not the easy road that makes a warrior. If the word warrior doesn’t work for you, then find another, but its a good word for me.

I kept writing and I was successful, beyond my wildest dreams successful. I never thought I’d hit #1 on the New York Times List, or be the #1 best selling paperback in the country ever. These are all goals I’ve reached, but never had on my list of goals to reach. My goal for my writing was much more humble. I simply wanted to make enough to support my daughter and myself after my divorce. I’ve done a bit more than just support her and myself, a great deal more. I am blessed, and lucky, but as with most luck it’s because I put the hard work in before my opportunities came. Lucky people are usually prepared people.

All the success, all the books, and my wonderful characters and worlds, filled up part of me, because writing isn’t just a job for me, it’s a calling. Unfortunately, my calling didn’t fill up all the holes, or heal all the wounds. Having a child didn’t fill it up. I love our daughter, and she is great, but it’s not her job to make me feel whole, nor is it my job to make her a whole human being. Parents are supposed to give their children wings, but the kids have to learn how to fly with them. Hard to let go, but necessary.

So what fills up the hole? If love, success, money, art, children, marriage, sex, religion, faith, God, Goddess, if none of that fills that horrible emptiness completely, then what does?

I don’t know if anything does, there, that’s the truth. I wish it wasn’t. I wish I had a magic word, or pill to share with you and we could all be happy and healthy and whole. The only thing I know that helps that black emptiness fill up some is therapy, and facing the issues, the wounds, that dug that piece of my soul out. Therapy is hard, good therapy is very hard, but it’s the only way I’ve found to truly heal and cope, but that alone isn’t enough. For me, I need a strong faith, a personal relationship with Deity every day. Loving relationships, because what one person damages, another can help you heal. Animals, dogs right now, because I find that they are damn near essential to my happiness. Exercise, because it effects my physical health and my mood. For me it takes hard and frequent exercise to get me where my orthopedist says I need to get and stay, but staying out of surgery is worth it. Good nutrition, again effects health and mood. Time management, there is time to do it all, but not if I sit down and watch three hours of television, or more of movies a night. I like TV, love some shows, and love some movies, but I’d rather spend couple time with my husband, or our girlfriend and her husband, or have a good heart to heart talk with our daughter. I’m trying to get outside at least once a day, five days a week, because I feel better when I do. That’s the trick to filling up the void inside, to find what makes you feel better, truly better, which means when you do this whether it’s religion, exercise, dating, marriage, sex, parenting, building model airplanes, sculpting, collecting stamps, or playing the sport of your choice, whatever it is that makes you feel better, also makes your life work better. If what you’re doing dulls the pain, but makes your life worse, then it’s a crutch, maybe even an addiction, seek professional help and cut the destructive shit out.

You know how I said, love outside of yourself won’t fill up that empty space? Well, love inside yourself may. You need to love yourself. I know it’s hard, but its necessary. We have to love ourselves in the end, because if we don’t we continue to look for validation everywhere but inside ourselves, and in the end, we’re all we’ve got. Lovers, husbands, wives, children, bosses, jobs, houses, cars, flowers, pets, everything, comes and goes, but we remain. The face we see everyday in the mirror is our only constant companion. I used to think that was lonely, but I’ve come to understand that it’s not lonely, it’s just hard, but doable. If we’re following the path we’re meant to follow and doing the things we’re supposed to be doing we will find the people that we need and want in our lives. They will come to us, if they do their work, and we will help each other be better. That emptiness inside can fill up, I know, because mine is much smaller than it was, the difference between every ocean on the planet and now just a swimming pool and even that is getting smaller. I am healing. I am walking my path and meeting the people that I’m supposed to meet. I am learning from them, and they from me. We impact each other far more than we know, but as we heal and become more solid, we are less impacted by others, and our influence on them grows. So walk softly as you heal, and understand that others may not be so far down their paths, but walk softly and carry a big stick as Teddy Roosevelt said. Or as my faith would say, “Do no harm, but take no shit.”

If sharing part of my journey helps you, I’m glad. If you read this and are totally puzzled by what I mean, then you didn’t need this message. If you need it, I hope you do understand it, and f not now, then someday. Be well, be safe, be brave, trust yourself, and find people to trust, and be worthy of any trust that is placed in you.

New Year’s Resolutions and Working Happier

You know those New Year’s resolutions that we all make, but never keep? Well, I made one to read some of the books on my to-be-read pile. I started with Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and enjoyed it. It was thought provoking, though I don’t agree with everything he proposes, it still had a lot of new ideas, new ways of looking at things, and that turned out to be something I needed. I came away with one personal insight that was very valuable to me. I realized that the one positive thing I hadn’t been able to give my daughter was to show her my happiness with my writing, my life’s work. She saw the deadlines, the tours taking me away from her, the research trips that did the same, and I guess I put all my negativity that I wouldn’t allow anywhere else in my life on my work. I didn’t realize I had done it, but I have. Maybe that’s why my very artsy daughter doesn’t want to make a living as an artist of any kind. “It’s too hard, mom,” she says. She’s right. If you don’t want it more than anything else in the world art will eat you alive, and spit you back out. Most of us never make enough money to live well, if at all. Many writers have to keep their day jobs forever, and write on the side. Most actors spend more time waiting tables than being on stage, or in front of a camera. I have worked very hard for my success, and been very lucky that what I want most to write so many people want to read. I’m one of the ones that made it, but for every amazing success like mine, there are hundreds that aren’t so positive.

The next book I picked up was The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, and that was also very well timed, because it got me thinking about happiness. I’d been working on my personal life for over a decade to make it happier. It had led me to leaving my first marriage and finding my husband Jonathon. I realized that one of the things that made my first marriage fail was that I wasn’t really cut out to be monogamous, so from the beginning Jonathon and I were polyamorous. It means to love more, even before we knew that poly was a word and there were other people out there doing it, we dated other people and added them to our lives. Thirteen years together as a couple, or more, and it just gets better. Part of truly being happy for me meant letting go of old ideas of what I thought marriage would be and embracing what worked for us.

Which brings me back to my career, my writing, what was once the passion of my life and had become a job. I’ve worked harder, faster, smarter, but I decided that I would try to work happier. I started to try and figure all this out while I was writing the newest Merry Gentry novel, A Shiver of Light, I gave myself permission to write anything I wanted part of the day, as long as I got my pages on the book done, too. Before this, with rare exceptions, I had forced myself to stay on one project at a time and write until it was complete, but when I was writing two best selling series for two different publishers, the deadlines were crushing. It was one of the things that led me to consolidating my two series under one publishing roof, though ironically the two publishing powerhouses have merged. Allowing myself the new freedom to spend part of the day on other projects didn’t slow me down on writing Merry, but seemed to energize me. It led to two e-specials. Dancing which is a novelette featuring a more happy domestic and relationship side of Anita Blake, my other series character, and tow of her boyfriends, Micah, and Nathaniel, along with a visit to see Detective Zerbrowski and his entire family at home. It was a lot of fun to write and many of you have told me how much you enjoyed reading it, so yay! I also wrote, “Shut Down,” which was an e-special gift to all of you for free while our government was behaving so childishly. I couldn’t make the politicians do their jobs, but I could give you a short story featuring Richard, our handsome, but self-loathing werewolf, and Ulfric (wolf king). Then I started what I thought was a Jason short story, and it got out of hand. It wouldn’t end and I began to fear I had a short novel on my hands. I finally had to stop working on it and let Merry and her world eat everything for awhile. For me, as a writer a book eventually consumes everything. It’s not unusual for me to work eighteen hour days for weeks on end as I finish a novel. I’d love to not work like that, but it’s simply the way my muse and I work best. Every time I try to write a few hours, then quite, and hit it the next day, my productivity grinds to a halt.

I finished the Merry book, and was exhausted, drained, used up, as I usually am at the end of a long novel. This book had been unusually exhausting and emotional for me. It was the first Merry novel in four years, the babies were finally born, and I had to remember some personal sorrows so I could do Merry and her story justice. I went to some pretty dark places to write this book. I cried more than once, and came away feeling like I’d broken my own heart. As you can imagine, it takes a bit to recover from something like that, so I didn’t force myself to write something else right away, as I usual did. I didn’t even make myself finish the Jason piece. I wrote if I was moved to write. I wrote if an idea came to me. I made notes on ideas. I made notes on Anita. Eventually I even made some notes on Merry and her crew. I’m world building at least three brand new worlds, and some day, one of the three will raise it’s hand and be ready to be written and shared with all of you.

I thought I’d be finishing the Jason novelette first, but then two other shorter ideas got my attention and I wrote on them, but . . . they weren’t ready. As my writing group, The Alternate Historians, says, “it wasn’t soup yet”, so I let the stories simmer and didn’t push myself, normally I would have. Then came two weeks of travel that included one of the most fun Geek-loving weddings Jon and I have ever participated in – we got to be part of an arch of light sabers for the Bride and Groom to exit through! Yeah, that kind of wedding! We flew straight from that out of state wedding to Spring Break with Jon’s parents, and our daughter, Trinity.

We left this overly long, overly cold, overly snow-filled winter behind for tropical beaches, Caribbean blue oceans and 80F temperatures. It was glorious. I usually try not to write when I’m on family trips. First, it’s incredibly difficult with so many demands for my attention. Second, because sometimes, I feel punished when I’m writing while everyone else is playing in the sun and surf. It’s like being in a pretty cage. Yeah I can see the sunshine and ocean, but if I can’t touch it, what’s the point? But it had been so many weeks without really writing for me, that I began to search for a place to write.

I was poking at every flat surface that would hold my iPad and full-size keyboard. I put on my new Bose headphones and made notes. But one day, I wrote enough that it felt like writing, not just notes and it was an older idea, but suddenly a new idea had bumped against it, and there was a spark. I wrote until that spark faded, and it was time to have dinner with my family.

I’ve been letting myself write on whatever my Muse and I wanted to work on, and that’s been fun. I’ve had more ideas come to me in the last few months than I’d found in years. I’ve let my Muse and I play, and it’s been glorious, but I need a deadline, a focus. Its been so long since I’ve let my mind wander through the Looking Glass without worrying about where I’m going, or when I’ll get there, that I’d forgotten that deadlines are my friends, not my enemies. They help me concentrate and narrow my vision down to a laser point and create. I had three stories ready to go, but no idea which was cooked enough to be soup. I let myself write on any of the three, and then suddenly one of them took the lead and we were off!

Today, for the first time since I typed, the End, on Shiver of Light, I wrote so long and so hard, that when Jon interrupted me for lunch, because when you eat healthier you really have to eat regularly during the day, I was inpatient, snapping at him. I knew it, I apologized, but I felt like if he didn’t get out of my office and let me finish the scene I was writing I would scream. He kissed me, and left to fetch lunch. He let me know when he got back, but today was his day at gym, not mine, so he had to eat on time, I could fudge it a little. When I was done with the scene, my injured arm hurt like hell. (It’s a permanent injury, more muscle helps which is one of the reasons for my dedication to the gym.) I was dazed and almost stumbled downstairs with the dogs trailing around me. I joined Jon in the other part of the house. We had a few minutes together while I started eating and then he had to go to gym. I put my feet up for a few minutes and cuddled the dogs on the couch and watched CSI. It’s one of my go-to shows when I’m writing well and want to be entertained, but not distracted from my story. I think we got through the first five seasons while I was writing Merry, so today was the beginning of season six. Then I went back to work. It was mostly notes, but I know exactly what happens next in the story. I know which idea I will finish next. I’ve given myself about two weeks to complete the story. I want it done before we get on the next plane for our next trip, which is about two weeks away. (I actually didn’t make that deadline, but finished it on the plane for the trip.)

I told Jon that I knew what I was writing next. He said, “I know.”

“How did you know?” I asked.

“Because this is the first time since you finished Merry that you were frantic to write and shushed me, so I’d leave you alone to write.” He smiled, kissed me, and left me to work.

I love my husband, and part of why loving each other works for us, is that he understood that me practically snarling at him today was a very good sign. He didn’t take it personally, he understood. He married me after I was established as a novelist, so he knew what he was getting into as much as anyone can that marries an artist. We are not always easy to live with, and if you expect us to play by muggle rules then you will be sadly disappointed. But since Jon is no more a muggle than I am, it works for us.

I don’t know if I’ve figured out all I need to work happier, but I’m getting there, and it’s not the view from the top of the mountain you need to love, it’s the climb up, because you can’t stay at the top of the mountain forever. That gets you one goal accomplished. I’ve got a whole mountain range spread out before me, and I want to climb them all.

Kiss the Dead Done; Writer Restless

I’ve been working on deadlines through December, or on tour, and working on a deadline, for the last ten years. This year I worked my ass off and finished the latest book, Kiss the Dead, the day before Winter Solstice. It took two weeks of working all day and into the night. 10PM was early, 1 to 2AM was more routine. I wrote ‘The End” at 4AM, and the book was done. I had Solstice, Christmas, and Yule, off for the first time in a decade. I was thrilled, my family was delighted. Jon, who had stayed in his office most of the nights I stayed up, in case I needed something, got to sleep in with me. I was beyond beat, and sleeping was a wonderful thing. It happened to coincide with Trinity, our daughter, being off school, so for the first time in years I was going to be able to take time off when she was off; yay!

The next day when I woke I was energized. I cleaned off two of my desks and begin to organize my office. There’s always debris from a book, and the office is trashed like a crime scene, if you substitute paper, and sticky notes, for blood and bodies. I felt great!

What I didn’t realize is that I’d spent the last decade training my family to be happy hermits. Trinity is playing on her new DS; Jon played WOW, World of Warcraft in his office; Chica, my sister of choice, went to see her birth family. I tried to get them all interested in going out and seeing a movie, but they’d had enough of people and out, they wanted hermit time and in. I’d asked Chica before she left, and she wanted to come home and just relax, so no one wanted to go out of the house to do anything. So, I was in a house of happy hermits, and I wanted to DO-SOMETHING!

I went to my office with the dogs, Sasquatch and Keiko with me. The dogs had gotten into the routine of being in the office constantly, so they loved it. Keiko is a rescue from a puppy mill, and this is her first Christmas in a house, so she thinks the world is all about being in my office with me into the wee hours. I meditated, and that helped. I texted some friends, and it helped some. I didn’t want to call, because I wanted to give people time with their families, but honestly talking was not what I wanted. I was beyond restless. I read in one of the many books that had been waiting for me to have the time to read, rather than just write. I drank tea, read, cuddled in the big leather chair in my office with the dogs; it was good. But I was still so restless I couldn’t stand it. If my gym had been open I’d have gone, but barring that I got on the treadmill for an hour. I have missed a lot of gym time due to the book deadline eating the world. The treadmill was good, very good, and took the edge off, then it was time to join Chica, Jon, and Trinity, for dinner, and conversation, oh, and presents. Trinity had been with her father over Christmas Eve and part of today, and we’d waited presents for her. Honestly, I had the major present that I’d wanted, the book done, and time off with my family while we were all off from school and work. I just hadn’t understood that going from a schedule like that to down time would be such an adjustment. It’s always an adjustment, but never this bad, and I hadn’t realized that everyone else would be wanting to be quiet and alone-ish, though I should have figured that. It was logical for them to want to de-stress from being out with so many people all the time. I’ve been in my office, alone for weeks, so out was what I needed. It was interesting and perfectly logical, but I so didn’t see it coming. Oh, no, Jon, hadn’t been out with too many people, he’s just naturally more solitary than I am by nature.

So tomorrow, I will make plans to do something, go somewhere, because things will be open. People can come with, or I can go by myself, but either way, I’ll be better prepared for this sense of restlessness that always comes in some form, just never quite this bad. I blame the gym, I think I’ve gotten used to moving my body when I’m restless. Sitting and reading alone, no longer refreshes me. Or maybe sitting and reading is just too close to sitting and writing, and I need something else over this short break.