Here it is – more than 2 weeks after the end of April.
2 weeks after completing the AtoZ Blog Challenge.
3 weeks… THREE!!!… after participating in an outstanding short story intensive.
And what have I done in the last two weeks? Not write. That’s what I’ve done.
It’s not that I didn’t have very good intentions. There are a couple of short stories that I started and want to finish. There is the novella that began on my blog. I want to keep practicing with the techniques learned in my class so my writing continues to get better and faster.
And I haven’t done any of it.
I could enumerate the reasons. Some of them are actually good.
But I won’t.
Because the reality is that no matter how good my reasons, if I want to be a writer, I need to write. It needs to take priority over Facebook and other time wasters, for starters. It needs to be at the top of my To Do list on a daily basis.
I struggled with that and (mostly) won during the blog challenge. There were days that I had a lot going on, but I’d made a commitment and I followed through.
But as soon as the challenge was over, I gave myself permission to take a couple of days off. A couple of days became a couple of weeks, and here we are, more than halfway through the month and this post is the most I’ve written.
So, effective immediately, I’m making a new commitment to myself. My commitment is to write.
- I will work on fiction at least 5 days a week.
- I will post on this blog at least once a week.
- I will not allow myself to make excuses for putting off my dreams.
I might not always win the struggle… and make no mistake, for me keeping any kind of routine is a struggle. But I will continue to do this thing that gives me so much pleasure. I’ll continue to create and lose myself in interesting worlds filled with interesting characters.
I will write.
And hopefully you’ll be glad I did.
We will (be glad) –meanwhile, I so get this aversion of yours to routine!
I just read a great post last week on Terrible Minds (Chuck Wendig, warning: explicit material) about how each writer has his own process, and that not all writers are meant to write every single day. What a relief to know that I’m okay writing when I have the time, as long as it’s regularly, and that some writers are doing just fine writing in great big bursts, and then letting it be for a while.
That might be you. And having done the A to Z challenge myself I know how draining it can be. So I don’t think you should be that hard yourself!
That said, I’m looking forward to reading more posts here at dreaming in daylight, and wishing you glorious success with your new goals. 🙂