More on writing

I always wake up planning I'm going to write, no matter if it's weekend, holiday, birthday, I don't care. This morning I got up at 4:45. My cat was at the foot of the bed snoring and moaning in her sleep, like a squeak-toy. It was a funny thing to awaken to. 

Getting up so early sounds really motivated, except that's not how I planned it. Sometimes I just awaken feeling alert. I read more of Solomon's book, for about a half hour, and then wrote.



You'll hear from writers that they wrote, 900, 1200, 2000 words today, and it looks great on paper, but they're not talking about final, professional grade writing. Think of that as the raw material. You're only getting started. Otherwise, there would be a surge of novels published every December, after Nanowramo. Now, you have to use other skills to make it worth anybody else reading. I'm certain some writers can crank out almost finished text spontaneously, but they've probably had decades of experience. That's not where I'm at.

Getting up at four had a drawback: I was worn out by 11 a.m. I went to sleep, got up, and discovered that my day had fallen apart again. From now on, I don't write out a schedule. That worked when I had uncontrolled moods and attention deficit. I don't need it now, and it's just discouraging. My principle of time management now is "Do what needs it." That saying's ungrammatical, but it's succinct.

For writing today, I took my writing group's critiques for chapter 4 and copied them off on master sheet, then I added those corrections the electronic copy. I've been taking about seventy percent of their suggestions and coming up with different solutions than what they suggested for another ten percent. I'm not done with it yet. After that I have a little touching up to do before it goes into the manuscript. Then I'll be done with the chapter, and tomorrow I'll start on chapter 5.

For tomorrow, I think I'll visit my past with another blog entry. I've had an epiphany on how to write on difficult subjects, and my past is difficult not because I writer's block, but because I have too much to write in too many different directions.