Writing?

Yes, there is a question mark after ‘writing’ today, because the facts are simple: I haven’t really been writing/editing/working on my stories lately. I am just full of excuses and my New Years Resolution is failing miserably (as always…it only took ten New Years Resolutions to stop biting my fingernails!). I have a full time job and a social life and a relationship and books that begged to be read at night. Something has got to go to make time to write, and it won’t be my job (I love it and it pays the bills!), it won’t be my social life (I love my friends!), it won’t be my boyfriend (I love him!) and I don’t want it to be my books (I love them, too), but I think it has to be. Even when I do something after work, when I come home I read for hours…hours that I could be writing.

Since my biggest difficulty writing during the past few months is lack of time; it will sometimes be days or weeks or (I’m embarrassed to say) months before I can get back to where I left off. And by that point, with my terrible memory for plot details, I can’t remember what has happened in the story, even though I’ve written it myself! So then I have to go back and read the earlier paragraphs or chapters before I can even write. It’s so frustrating, so unproductive! I like writing. I want to eventually make a career out of writing. So why am I making it harder for myself?

My updated resolution: three days during the workweek I will work on my stories-any story in any way (editing, writing, brainstorming)- for one hour from 9pm to 10pm. And then I will write for at least two hours (preferably more) on the weekends. This seems reasonable. And once I have my schedule back, I hope to be much much more productive. I hope you’ll help keep me on track!

UPDATE: I wrote this post ahead of time like I always do. And since writing it on Sunday night I felt so guilty that I have worked on writing up a detailed outline for new WIP Dueling Princesses (one hour each on two days) plus I wrote another chapter (up to three whole chapters)! Dueling Princesses is the companion novel, but not quite sequel, to The Rose of Coracus and tells the story of some of the minor characters from the first book. I've very excited about it and please of the progress I made this week. Now I want a cookie. Or at least a gold star!