Evidence of my distraction

aka: The Aftermath






Writers are supposed to avoid clichés, but I'm too tired from Thanksgiving to muster up the energy to say anything other than...







A picture's worth a thousand words!











So here are three pictures to make up for the three thousand words I haven't written lately and to explain why I haven't had time to write them.










Guess I'd better wrap this up and head back to the kitchen...

(sigh)

Concise is nice, right?

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This will be another brief entry. (How can it be Friday again already?!)

Cindy mentioned in her comment to my last post that sometimes amazing things come from writing even when you're uninspired.

That happens to me regularly!

So I've had to force myself to work a couple of times this week (which has turned out to be even busier than I thought), but even so, the story has moved in a really interesting direction.

I love it when that happens!

The kids and I are going away for the weekend, then they are off school all next week, and I'm hosting a T-giving dinner for 10 people at my house on Thursday, so I'm not expecting to make a lot of progress in the near future. But I'm going to sit down every day regardless. Even if I don't make my 1000 word a day goal every day, any progress is better than none. And who knows what will crop up? If I make myself sit down and do it, I know progress will be made somehow!

It's Friday, so I have to blog about something!

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For some reason, all of my recent entries have been on Fridays. I'm not sure why that is, but now posting on Friday feels compulsory. So here I am even though I don't feel particularly inspired.

Please bear that in mind as you read the three scattered thoughts to follow.

1. The 1000-word-a-day plan is going well--although the next few weeks are rife with school holidays and minimum days so I will have more mom-responsibilities than usual and it might be difficult to stay on track.


2. The story is coming together. I still have a lot of unanswered questions, but I feel pretty confident (most of the time) that I'll find the answers eventually.


3. I think the nice thing about having a word count goal is that it keeps you working, even when you don't feel like writing--even when you're uninspired. Hey! That's kind of like having a must-blog-on-Fridays policy!

So there you have it! Uninspired and compulsory, but also done!

See you next Friday!

The Plan

My new approach is twofold:

1. Write 1000 words a day--even on days where I don't have a lot of time, like the weekends. I'll get up early to write as usual, and squeeze the rest of the words in during the day. I've managed to get 1000 new words written every day this week, except for Halloween, which was super busy, so I only managed 500.

2. On the days when I do have more time, after I've gotten my 1000 done, I'll revise what I've already written. Some writers can keep going forward on a first draft without revising, but I don't think I have it in me to write only SFD. Plus I enjoy revising (most of the time) and trying to get my wording just right.

At first, I worried that at an 1000-word a day pace, I wouldn't be able to keep up with the revising. But so far it hasn't been a problem. That might change later in the month. The kids have a lot of days off in November.

But regardless, I'm making much better progress than I was, so for now, I'd say this new approach is working well for me.

And since this has to be my most boring blog entry ever (and that's saying something!), I'm going to close with a quote and a link.

My daughter's class is reading Laura Ingals Wilder's Little House on the Prairie. One of the assignments contained this passage:

When Laura peeked out from behind the slab again, both Indians were looking straight at her. Her heart thumped into her throat and choked her with its pounding. Two black eyes glittered down into her eyes. The Indian did not move, not one muscle of his face moved. Only his eyes shone and sparkled at her.

Isn't that great? I love the language: simple and understandable but also unique and incredibly descriptive.

And here's the link, which has nothing to do with fiction, but I'm throwing it out here anyway:

1977 JC Penney Catalog

Prepare to be amused!