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How are those resolutions doing? Is February a milestone in the keeping of them or a millstone dragging you down from where you’d hoped to be?
My resolutions (though I prefer to call them plans since resolve doesn’t always play a role) could be doing better. I haven’t made it back to the gym–that’s the bad part. I’m not as far along with my writing as I’d hoped to be, which is a not–wonderful part. On the other hand, I’m producing–a good part. So I guess I’ll call February a milestone. One month down, 11 more to go.
A lot of things can keep us from writing. Sometimes we actually want them to, whether or not we admit it. Got a child whose school needs volunteers? A spouse or significant other whose job requires a social commitment? How about a bathroom that needs cleaning? All those things can take us away from our writing. When we choose to do one of those instead of sitting in front of the keyboard, we’re choosing not to make progress on the “work in progress.” Why?
The child’s school or the spouse/significant other’s social obligations do matter, and we may have to make a choice about time allocation. Occasional such choices aren’t really the issues. Trends in such choices are.
Sometimes we’re delaying the moment when we must send this manuscript into the world, possibly (the odds favor “probably”) to face rejection. Sometimes we don’t know what comes next. Sometimes we’re just sick of working on the darned thing. As a friend of mine once reminded me, though, we can’t sell part of a manuscript. Those of us just starting out can’t, anyway. So anyone who really wants that elusive prize, a book with her (or his) name on the cover, has to stay in the chair and work on it. In How to Write Fantasy and Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card says something along the lines of “ideas are more likely to come to the writer hunched over the keyboard than the one playing video games in the basement.” The wording probably isn’t exact, but the point rings true for those of us who’re addicted to Space Invaders (or Tetris, in my case.)
So I’m working on progressing faster and getting back to the gym. How’re you doing?
9 Comments
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Amy 
Cool, I hadn’t realized you could blog off your website! Took me a moment to figure out but that makes for lovely one-stop shopping.
I forgot to tell you I got a new Macbook, so I’m still learning how to cruise around with it. For some reason, your photo on the home page isn’t showing. There’s just a square where it ought to be. Guess I need to figure out what I need to download. But I do love that castle/city banner!