I suppose you could call it writer’s block. I had been progressing nicely with book 3’s manuscript when everything screeched to a halt. I was due to write a raiding scene, but I didn’t know how to do it. It was totally make-it-up-as-I-go which I know is how one writes fiction, but this was even worse than usual.
So I dragged my feet. It’s been unusually busy around here anyway, with it being the end of the year, with sports and weddings and all sorts of cool things. When one …day turned to two, then three, I got out of the habit of writing daily. Instead of writing, I would check the newest political headlines on the internet.
And every day, the feelings of despair, of being a slacker, deepened. Finally, yesterday, I sprinted with my writing friends. I love this group because there are no expectations. We just sprint when we can. It’s really a good mental exercise to sprint. It frees you from that internal editor that tells you your stuff is no good so why even try?
Last night, I wrote 1122 words. This morning, by 10:30, I had written 1668 words from two separate sprints. I got past that dreaded scene, which turned out decent. I am now 19,908 words into my goal of 60k words for this manuscript…a third of the way there. I am so stoked.
Something new I’ve been doing this week: I’ve been writing a “blog post” every day which I post mainly here on my FB page (just easier). They are little nonfiction vignettes from that day. It’s been a good exercise in writing stories. I try to give them a bit of an arc, but if there’s not one, I don’t push it.
It’s not been easy to fulfill this daily thing, I won’t lie. Sometimes, I am writing it half-asleep past midnight. But it helps discipline me and it gets me pondering the day’s events and noticing details that I will otherwise quickly forget.
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