Originally published at Thus Sayeth the Lord…. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been in a slump on the novel for the past couple weeks. It’s been depressing really, as I haven’t had really anything driving my inability to write. Except my own laziness. I’d open up the MS-Word doc, look at where I left off…and go browse the internet for an hour and a half instead of bang my fingers against the story.

But this morning, I resolved to sit down and write through it. It was terrible. It was like…trying to push wet spaghetti noodles through holes in a collander with my tongue. I persevered. Incidentally, “persevered”: comes from the combination of two words.

Perspire: in the sense of when you’re constipated, but REALLY trying to go to the bathroom, and your forehead beads up with sweat, and your lower back (and unmentionables) ache from the strain, and you can feel your shoulders get all taut…
Severed: in the classical, martyrdom, torturous meaning of the word, where you have your limbs hacked off for the sake of something you love.

Perseverance. Persevered. I’m not making this up. I swear.

Anyway, I persevered and got some good writing in. Even better, I stopped writing in a place where I know what happens next. Now, I shall let my subconscious mind stew on the situation in my novel; it shall simmer, merrily. And when I return to the text, the repast that I will lay forth on the table of my novel will be filling and hearty indeed