Grinding Out Word Count

I got my writing done for the day, but it was definitely NOT a pretty sight. At least most of it wasn’t.

I got the fiction out of the way early, writing over 900 words in less than half an hour right after Neal went to work. That part was easy and it was fairly good looking, too.

Then I painted for half an hour or so before lunch and again after lunch and thought, “This is going to be a good day! Great!”

Then I sat down to do 3,000 words on the interim story planning and … nothing happened. I couldn’t get started. I even wondered whether or not the idea was going to work. I had no eagerness for it; no ambition or enthusiasm. No nothing.

For a while, I pondered the notion of opening any idea and writing enough words to add up to 3,000. That is the goal, after all. Other than Saving Grace, there isn’t a set story to work on.

I thought about reading Saving Grace and getting back to work on that.

I thought about painting something else.

I thought about doing nothing.

I did take a twenty minute nap in the middle of the afternoon, but that didn’t accomplish anything either. I couldn’t even really get to sound sleep! It was pitiful.

I even complained to Neal about lack of motivation and that’s even more pitiful!

He played in a concert this evening that took up the entire evening from 4:30 on, so I told myself, “Self. You ARE going to sit down; you ARE going to open 2009-12-06 Idea; you ARE going to write something. I don’t care what it is, but you WILL write.”

So I did. As I said at the beginning, it wasn’t pretty. And it wasn’t very much over the 3,000 goal, either. But it got done, Praise the LORD!

As I write this post, I don’t know whether or not the idea will survive another day. I see nothing but problems with it, but my bones ache, too, and it’s cold and I’m tired, so it could be that all I need is a good night’s sleep and an attitude adjustment. I’ll have to wait until morning to see whether or not that’s the case.

But for now, the fiction word count goal is satisfied; the regular word count goal is satisfied; I made good progress on a brand new painting; and we’re back home from a wonderful concert. Life is good. God is Good! So what if it writing was like pulling teeth today. There’s always tomorrow!