Stumbling Blocks

Sometime in May, I started keeping track of how much writing I get done each day. I wanted to try harder, but needed to know how much I was getting done as a starting point. Boy, am I all over the place.

Some days, I might do more than 4,000 words. Other days, I would struggle to do 300 words. And there have been a number of days when I didn't manage to do any writing at all. Well, I did go to a convention, and then drive to Florida. When we're on vacation, my spouse feels that we must spend twelve hours a day at the theme parks, so that doesn't leave much time – and even less energy – for writing.

But the thing is, I'm not managing 1,000 words a day. Frankly, I'm not even managing 100 words a day. Since the mantra is that a writer needs to write every day, does that make me a wanna be, rather than a writer?

Not in my mind. If I turn out to be a wanna-be, it'll be because I never find an audience, not because I don't manage to write every single day.

You know that old saying, "No man is an island"? Well, neither am I. I have family members who expect certain things from me, like some housework, meal cooking, and so forth. There's a certain amount of housework, yardwork and so forth that is expected of me by society, if not my family. Even as a writer, I have to spend some time researching markets where I can submit what I do write, and so forth. So I can't spend every minute of every day writing, no matter how much I want to. And I do want to, most days. I dream of taking a vacation to a place where I would need to do the minimum of housework and cooking, and could spend 90% of my awake time writing. I've had one or two like that, and I would like to schedule more of them.

Life is full of stumbling blocks, like things that need to get done before you can sit down to write. The trick is to stumble, and then get back up and move forward. So I'll work on getting some writing done as many days as I can, as well as aiming for more days where I get 4,000 words written, rather than 300. Wish me luck. See ya next week.        Trudy