Writing Time

Hi folks,

Well, we're back again at the writing practice. Last time I spoke about some of the rules. Today I will speak to another. "Write something every day! Just sit down and write, don't wait for the muse!" and so on.

You've all seen this advice on line and heard it in class. It's good advice...if you write for a living and have deadlines to meet. It might even work well for a plotter, not being one I wouldn't know. I'm told I'm a pantster.

What's a pantster? Somebody who has no plan, they just fly by the seat of their pants. Okay, guilty as charged. I can sit down and five minutes later have a broad outline of where I want the story to go. It rarely goes there anyway.

So, what does all that have to do with the write everyday rule? Well, I'm about to tell ya, see. I feel about that rule the way I feel about spending weeks plotting an outline. I'm a story teller. I sit to the keyboard and tell a story. 

If the voices in my head won't talk to me, I do something else, walk the dogs, weed the garden, bake bread, read, drink, whatever. Anything but write. I only write when I have a story to tell. Sometimes that's every day, other times I can go weeks without writing a dang thing.

Moral of the story? Ignore that dang rule. Do what works for you. Write when it brings you joy, fills you with excitement, takes you out of time. Write when you're driven to. That's when the good stuff happens.

ROW80 check in.

My beloved K has been away at a conference these past few days and the muse has been cracking the whip. Over the past week I have taken my WIP from 30,000 words plus to over 50,000. This sort of thing only happens when I am left on my own. Over the next week I will try to crack 60,000. Wish me luck.

That's it for me today. I hope this finds you all well, happy, successful, and excited about life.

Bless
Pru