I’m part of a group of awesome authors and bloggers on the street team for Gabriela Pereira’s upcoming book, DIY MFA. Gabriela’s podcast and website are both insanely inspiring and fun to browse through (if writing and creative interest you). This week we were encouraged to share a time when we had to honor our reality and writing had to take a backseat. I remember that time well, in fact, I already wrote a post about it! This first appeared in September 2013—I was so huge and pregnant and determined to get back to my writing, despite the morning sickness and tiredness.
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I finished the first draft of my novel in May (as in four months ago). In an ideal world, my novel would be finished by now, and I’d be asking (begging) for someone, anyone, to publish it. Instead I haven’t touched it in four months. I have been far from unbusy during those four months (I’m growing a baby for one, and if we’re pointing fingers, it’s his fault that I first took a break and slowed down in the first place . . . ), however, I still found myself annoyed with myself that I hadn’t gotten more of the rewrites done (I promise you, I’ve been working on the prologue and first chapter for about the past month now).
This past weekend I bit the bullet. Stuck my hiney in a chair (as my grandma would say) and told myself I wasn’t going to quit until I got 1,000 words edited/rewritten. Somehow Saturday I got in 2,918 and Sunday 1,086 rounding in Monday with 1,195. I seriously feel like I’m on fire.
Other than feeling like there is a literal fire under me to get this thing finished before the end of the year (can we just pause for a moment to imagine how insane January is going to be with Scout’s birth and February with my bestie’s wedding?) what change? Why am I all of a sudden crazy ready to work on this thing again?
(1) San writing, I’ve been reading — a lot. I’ve been a reader all my life. However, fast reader, I have been not. So far for this year, I’ve almost doubled my reading of last year alone . . . and there is still two and a half months left for this year! I’m reading differently now. I study what I read. I figure out what I like and why I like it. I see what works, what doesn’t. I have an overwhelming desire to get my story out. More so than ever.
(2) I don’t watch a lot of television, but I’ve gotten addicted to two shows in the past two months and went on a watch binge. The first one was Once Upon A Time. I’m a sucker for fairy tales and can we just think a minute about Charming and Snow’s relationship? I’m loving it. I inhaled the first season back when it first aired. I started watching the second season and lost interest, then, in a desperate attempt to keep myself entertained while washing dishes, started watching it on Netflix and got sucked in all over again. I’m catching the third season on Hulu.com — because honestly, watching something on tv, when it actually airs, well, in the words of my favorite boss and a co-worker “ain’t nobody got time for that.”
The second show I fell in love with — the CW’s Beauty and the Beast. First off I’m pretty sure every show that airs on the CW is geared towards teen girls . . . seriously? Yes. Beauty and the Beast with all it’s lovey duvey, will she won’t she, oh they finally kissed, now they are ripped apartness is right up the alley of a girl between the age of 12-19. It’s like girly YA literature on the screen.
But while it’s tv, and yes it’s a time suck, you can learn stuff from shows like these. You can learn what works and doesn’t. When you start losing interest in the character because of one reason or another. When they kill off a character, etc, etc, etc — study it and find out why. Then make sure nothing in your novel makes your reader want to lose interest in any of your character (or wish you would kill a character off already).
(3) The final reason I’m feeling the fire. Um. You guys. You guys are seriously awesome. With every tweet and Facebook post begging me to finish — asking me when it’s going to be done . . . Well, I can’t let you down now! I let the cat out of the bag. There’s no stuffing it back in now.
So while, yes, I’m annoyed that it is taking me so long to finish this thing up, taking a break can be a good thing. And I promise. It will be done soon.
And when you’re ready to come back from a writing break, here are some tips for getting back on the “goal-horse”
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