“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” – E.L. Doctorow
The Write Words
When I write, truly write with focus, without interruptions or editing, I amaze myself with how many words end up on the page. When I do this, my fingers on the keyboard often go places my brain hasn’t yet reached.
And after I have written, be it a blog, a freelance profile, an essay, or a bit more on my memoir, which has been languishing untouched for way too long, I come away with a great sense of achievement. Writing makes me feel good about myself, even if the writing is just for myself.
But physically sitting myself down in front of a keyboard, butt in chair as writers call it, is a daily struggle. This is the reason why these first words of a blog titled Rantings of a Third Kind sang so true to me this morning:
“I am writing, I am writing, I am so totally writing! This is the mantra, I am always reciting. But, it so damned hard, as my mind is against me fighting…”
I signed up six times for NaNoWriMo – which stands for National Novel Writing Month, a free program to help writers complete a 50,000-word novel in 30 days– and dropped out the first five times before actually getting a certificate of completion for my final effort.
November is NaNo Month, by the way, and the program began today. You can check it out at: https://nanowrimo.org/
My daughter, Deborah, is attempting the program this year. I, however, have just vowed to spend at least 30 minutes every day writing. I started my goal at the beginning of the week, and it was easy as rolling downhill — until today when I started coming up with every excuse in the book why I didn’t need to write on a Sunday.
But then I read the Rantings of a Third Kind blog and picked up the author’s mantra: I am writing, I am writing, I am so totally writing!
Bean Pat: A writer who struggles as I do. https://gunroswell.wpcomstaging.com/2020/11/01/on-my-sunday-seat-i-do-write/
Pat Bean is a retired journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon, and is always searching for life’s silver lining.
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Thanks, Pat. I needed this today.
Love the quote about the fog — and it’s true! I tried something (can’t remember the exact name) like NoBloPoMo or something like that. We had to write a post a day for the month of November. It was difficult to find time to do that, but I was glad that I did. I inevitably got better . . . and faster!
Thanks for commenting Len. You have always been an inspiration to me.
I have similar habits, writing the flow, without censoring myself, otherwise nothing gets put “on paper”. I took years to come to this space where I can do that, and sometimes editing is even fun 😉
Oh, and a great thanks for picking up my mantra! I can tell you, it is a daily struggle to just do the writing. I am slowly trying to develop new habits to somehow get the writing done before and after my daily grind, and I think I may have just picked up a working one, at least for now. Also, as you mentioned, it is NaNoWriMo this month so that is another challenge for me this year, first year to be honest I am taking part in it. Good luck to all of you who are doing that, it is a true challenge in such a limited time, even if I know I have done far more writing in less time before, but these days, to word count is less as other work is more. But, I digress and now I need to go back to my own motto: Complain less, write more 🙂
Happy writing!