Ho-hum

I have the "ho-hums" today. I'm tired. I'm busy at work. I have knitting projects to finish. I critiqued and wrote this week. Yet, all I want to do is sit in a squishy chair, lean back and stare off into space for a few minutes... hours... maybe even days. I've decided it's the Ho-Hums. My mom used to call it Staring time. She would get me up 30 minutes earlier every morning, so I'd have time just to stare. What do I do during those times? My mind floats through anything and everything. I think about what I want to do, what I haven't done, what I need to do (because that's not always what I want to do), mistakes I've made, dreams I've had... the list goes on and on.

The Ho-Hums don't last, but they make me feel very unproductive. I've kept up with my writing schedule week, which is pretty good, considering I've been juggling the Ho-Hums the whole time.

I'm not nearly as frightened about writing as I used to be. I've come to terms with the fact that it's hard from every angle, and I've decided I'm going to jump in anyway. Everything's hard. There's going to be rejection. I'm still going to write what I like and how I know to write. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be... if not... I'm going to write anyway, because I'm tired of being the one servant who buried his talent instead of using it... (one of my favorite parables).

I'm making good progress on Truthseekers. The last hundred pages (yes, I'm still stuck at the last hundred pages) are daunting, and I do have a lot of changes to make, but they are coming.

I've found a new twist on a very old story. So I think I'll dust that off here in a bit and give it a whirl as well.

Still feeling the Ho-Hums... I think I'll get some cereal and stare off into space for a while before I go to work.

I'm happy to report that my new schedule is working rather well. I got 2 critiques done this week (Actually that would be 3, but one is for a friend outside of my online critique group). I've worked on my own project, and have finally rewritten to the point that now I'm in totally old stuff and need to intertwine it with the new story line. I'm about 100 pages away to the original end. Not sure how much is going to be left, but I'm determined that this is my last "rewrite". Anything after this will be strictly grammatical corrections. I'm not adding ANYTHING else new to the story (I hope!).

I'm always nervous about critiquing, because I have been burned really bad in the past. I waded into the shallow end of the adult writing world about eight years ago, and got a RUDE awakening. I was very raw in my writing style, still living the high school dream of fantastic writing. Notice I said "shallow end", because I've been too timid to jump head first into the deep end. My writing journey has been slow and sometimes steady. I've done more wishing I could write than actual writing. It hasn't been but the last year or so that I have waded from the shallow end to the middle. My head is still above water, and I can still feel the bottom with my feet, but I know I have learned so much and writing will always be a part of my life. I don't know if I"ll ever jump off the diving board, but I plan on staying in the water. :)

I was actually given the best complement so far in my writing career, from a friend I highly regard. I've been critiquing his first YA Fantasy. I had a lot of thoughts to give him, and I was concerned how he would take it. Even constructive, supportive criticism can be hard to read when it's thick and overwhelming. When I checked with him, he asked me if I'd ever thought about going into editing for a living. He was impressed with what I had to say, and the things I found. Looks like I'm learning something after all. :)

My personal goals are: Finish my manuscript, Truthseekers. Revive my manuscript, Lily Among the Thorns. Keep critiquing. Keep writing. Learn how to put a proposal together. Send my stories out again and a again. Never give up... never surrender :)

Alive and kicking

Okay, while the idea was a great one, apparently I'm not very good at following my own rules. I would say life interrupted writing, but I won't use that as an excuse... even though it's true... but I won't use it anyway...

I am tweaking this challenge just a bit. So far it has worked really well, granted I'm only in my 3rd day of tweaking, but I take every success I can get.

I am setting up a schedule:

Monday: Do my own writing (Write)
Tuesday: Critique someone else's writing (Critique)
Wednesday: Blog, Write
Thursday: Critique
Friday: Write
Saturday: Toss up... Write or Blog or Critique or none at all
Sunday: Toss up

Technically, I'm still writing every day... but this gives me better structure. So far this week, it has worked really well.