Retreat to Advance

The last couple of weeks have been rough on my health (only a winter cold, but a nasty one that's lingered on for nine days, a cold that my wife is now deep in the throes of while I'm finally starting to recover from), rough at my 'real' job (busier than usual with 2011 planning), and rough in Boston's January weather (the foot and a half of snow from a few days ago, first preserved in single digit wind chill temperatures, now becoming six inches of slush following an afternoon and evening of not-quite-freezing rain).

Which means (you know where I'm going, you've heard the excuses before) my writing has suffered.

Or at least it did, up until yesterday.

Yesterday, during the Martin Luther King holiday, the writing group that I belong to, the Bay State Scribblers, got together far enough away from everyone's homes, jobs, and family, to spend five hours writing. Writing physically together in one room but otherwise separately. That was pretty much it, writing. (Coffee and doughnuts and cheese consumption notwithstanding.)

Everyone produced writing. We wrote. That was the goal, and the goal was achieved.

I myself ended up with the first draft of one complete flash fiction story, a half-dozen page beginning of a longer short story (one that's probably going nowhere as it is, but has some great characters and good descriptions to be mined for other stories), and a killer first page of a new story that I'm excited to return to. Not a ton of words, but a lot more than I've produced any other day this month.

Certainly the day was a success for me, and it sounded like it was for the rest of the group as well.

What made it work?

1. No distractions. No reaching for that novel you like to read 'for inspiration,' no random surfing the internet, no children or spouses jousting for your attention, no pets to play with (cute as they are).

2. Peer pressure. Just sitting there staring at the screen while Andi or Mike is pounding away at the keyboard isn't going to cut it.

3. One big block of time. Yes, you (and by you, of course I mean I) need to be putting in your half hour stretches as many nights a week as possible, but working through one false start alone often takes longer than thirty minutes. Given literally hours to work with, you find you are able to push past the usual start-up, flailing about, phase and get into the meat of a project, whether new or old.

4. And finally, I would have to say, the novelty of it all, particularly of the camaraderie. Some members of our group write more or less full time, but they don't write in the presence of other writers. It's cool -- you're working independently, but you can look up anytime and see you're not alone.

Get a group, get a room, and try it some time.

Retreat to advance.

Thanks for reading,

Stephen

2009-2010 Redux

The following is, in its entirety, the first entry in this blog from December of 2009. Through the clanging bells of another new year, it still rings true and clear.


My resolutions for the incipient new year are depressingly familiar, and I suspect not just for myself. Exercise more, eat less. Read more, work less -- or at least work smarter, rather than just harder. Spend more quality time with Penny (the wife) and Ellie (the dog).

And write more. Write more, and rewrite more, and edit more, and submit more for publication. Really. This time I mean it.

As you might have guessed from the above, I've been going through a spot of writer's drought lately. I can spout all the usual excuses (tough day at the office, suffering with a bad cold, a month's worth of Heroes episodes to catch up on, my Facebook status is, like, two days old ... ), but realistically?

Realistically, I simply haven't been putting my butt in the chair and banging away. I haven't been writing. And I could have been.

Hence, this Blog. I'm thinking blogging counts. I'm banging away at the keyboard, aren't I? It may not be fiction, or particularly enlightening, but it is word count. (One hundred and seventy seven words, to be precise, before this parenthetical sentence. Woo hoo!)

For the New Year, the promise / threat to myself is, I either write fiction for at least 30 minutes (only half an hour! what a wimp) on any given day that I'm home with access to the office, or I update this blog. I might even update the blog on days that I actually do manage to get some writing done with thoughts on the work in progress, or more likely thoughts on the process of the work.

Other writers are welcome to chime in with their own hints, hacks, and tales of success or woe. Non-writers are likely to be bored to tears. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Why? The idea being, as with all New Year resolutions, to develop new and improved habits, and break the old cycles of bad behavior. To push the butt back down in the chair until some words come out.

Yeah, good luck with that. Sounds like I'm barking at my own shadow to me. But maybe it's worth a try.

Happy New Year's Resolutions, everybody. Stay tuned.

Hey, I'm working on it. Off to get in my half hour of writing for January 1st, 2011.


Thanks for reading,


Stephen