Being realistic about how much I can write

Things are going great! I haven't been blogging because I've been doing so much fiction writing. At this rate, I'll have a first draft of a novel in a few weeks. OK, I'm lying, I haven't done much writing at all. My plan to write for at least half an hour each night isn't working, I have a million distractions and other things to do and generally feel like shit most of time, so I barely have the energy to do stupid things like clean my glasses or cut my nails, let alone write. But the important thing is that I still want to write.

The only writing I've managed to get done since I last blogged was the start of a review of Emily St. John Mandel's The Glass Hotel. It's still very much in a rough form and didn't come together as cleanly as I would like, but at least it's something. I'm mostly just having trouble organizing my thoughts and deciding which parts I want to discuss. Maybe I'm trying too hard to sound smart.

As far as reading, I'm sticking with Canadian writers as I'm now onto The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline, which took me a bit to get into but I'm enjoying so far.  It's maybe not the best thing to read during a pandemic, though.

I wonder if just trying to do any amount of writing at all each day is a better strategy than having a set time. Even five minutes is better than nothing.