Hi, everyone! I’m back home and happy to be on solid ground again.
I’ve made a commitment to send out a post every two weeks, and today’s the day. I wanted very badly to cop out and pull the covers over my head and barf out some excuse as to why you won’t get a blog today…
But then it was 3:00 a.m. and I couldn’t get back to sleep. And I remembered my last blog, which discussed writing even when you don’t feel like it. So instead of cursing my jet lag, I decided to use it to my advantage and get this blog out! How smug is that?
But first I had to have coffee, and then I had to skim (not scan, which means to read thoroughly) just the most important emails I’ve been ignoring for the past two weeks while I was on the West Coast. And write a few emails. And read that 99-cent short story I bought on Amazon for my new Kindle toy. And look something up for my daughter-in-law on BedBathandBeyond.com.
In short, my excitement with the rewards of jet lag dissolved when I suddenly realized that it was 6:30 and I was passing out from exhaustion.
Oops.
But it’s still Thursday all over the world (except in Australia; sorry, guys), and I can still make it. As I said in a guest post that will be published later this month, never, ever give up. As long as the candle is still burning (or in this case, the sun is still shining), you can correct your course.
How does this apply to us writers?
It is normal to fail sometimes. You will feel as if you cannot write another word, much less sentence. Perhaps you will even miss a deadline – which, by the way, I do not recommend. But write as if your life depended on it, and you will succeed and meet your commitments whether they are personal or dictated by a publisher.
One suggestion: give yourself an internal deadline. For instance, I must finish this blog and hit “Publish” in thirty-five minutes. You’d be surprised how well you can focus when the pressure is on.
Another positive outcome of today’s publish-on-Thursday-by-the-seat-of-my-pants commitment: I’ve decided to move my blogs up to Tuesday! I’d much rather you see my bi-weekly posts earlier in the week, so from now on I am committing to Tuesdays instead of Thursdays. You have it in black and white, folks.
In the next few weeks I’m going to be experimenting with creating and adhering to a daily and/or weekly schedule, and I’ll report my findings on the blog. And I’d love to hear from you! Do you have a schedule?
Do you stick to it? How did you figure it all out? Is it daily or weekly? Is it only a writing schedule or is it a life schedule?
If I hear from you by Tuesday I’ll print some of the replies on my Writer’s Clinic page.
And stay tuned for this Tuesday’s Comedy Grammar installment: The Apostrophe Catastrophe.
Happy writing,
Deena Nataf
www.BulletproofWriting.com[/fusion_text]