Better Than I Thought

So far, the Winter Writing Festival has helped me a great deal in getting my butt into gear (or into the chair, so to speak) and write again. I struggle with keeping focused–a LOT–and it’s something I’m trying to work on. There’s something about knowing there’s other writers participating in the same challenge that really keeps me motivated. I know, I know, if I want to make a career of this, I can’t be solely dependent on other writers to keep me going. Sure, they’ll be there to challenge me and keep me accountable and it’s always great to have a support group, but ultimately the actual writing is up to me.

Anyway, it’s nice to write again after one of those “slumps” (of which I have way too many…and need to push past that). It’s nice to lose myself in the story and let the words flow–even if the words aren’t all that good in the beginning–to see the story slowly come to life is a great feeling.

For this writing challenge, I started the novel I attempted to do during NaNo (and failed so miserably at, partially due to some morning/all day sickness and general exhaustion). I took it in a different direction and already it’s flowing better. I think part of the reason I failed at NaNo this past year was because I really didn’t have an outline to follow. I’m a plotter for the most part, although I don’t always follow my outlines specifically. But it helps to have an actual map to follow as compared to a few illegible and hard to understand directions equivalent to scribbling a few messy road directions on a the back of an old receipt 😛