Where Have I Been?

Excuse me. I seem to be lost. Where have I been?

I know I was writing earlier in the week. And I know I've been driving a lot and had some paying work come in that interrupted things plus piano rehearsals, recital, middle-school drama and even some veterinary issues. I worked in the yard all day yesterday, and I'm freezing some make-ahead dinners today so I'll be free to write in the coming days (and I hope week or two because those groceries were expensive). But it's a little scary how I really can't report on what I've done because I guess the answer is as Ceri put it, "Writin'? What writin'? I don't know nothin' about no writin'."

I will have tomatoes. And I will have more writin'. 'Cause I might get sidetracked that easy, but I don't give up that easy. (Yes, I know it should be "easily" but "easy" speaks more to my redneck heart.)

Y'all, let's get some writin' done!

8,000 Words Behind

I haven't written one word, except for several room service breakfast orders, which puts me 8,000 words behind for our first week. My DH and I went on a seven-day cruise last week. We had two days at sea and I had my laptop. I could have written. The thought even occurred to me. But I had chocolate instead and read a couple of books.

Before I left, I had visions that I would be writing. I took everything I needed. Everything but the slightest motivation.

One night I was even showered and pajamaed and in bed with a good book by 7:30. DH went to the casino and won $24. Ah me. That's about all the excitement I can stand and it was divine.

I wasn't completely lazy -- I did lots of miles on the promenade deck. Not as many miles as I had desserts, but better than no miles.

But now I'm back. The clothes washer may never catch up with all the laundry but I will catch up on my word count by writing 2,000 words a day, starting tomorrow. There's always tomorrow, right?

challenged but still game

I was going to wait and make my confessions tomorrow, but I just received the most wonderful email from my accountability partner and felt ready to hit the blog tonight. Anne, you're my hero.

This has been a very challenged week--not challenging, as that implies a lot of highs--but challenged, as in I had to push a lot to get through each day and its barriers. I've allowed myself to get into one of those pragmatic moods, where I don't allow myself to expect things to get worse, but I keep saying "isn't something going to go easy?".

So why did all that change with the email from Anne? Simple--she put the week into perspective. She can see my life more clearly than I can right now simply because she's 1500 miles away and looking in via my daily messages. She reminded me of how I didn't kill a doctor I was sent to interview who was a complete waste of time, and still figured out how to get an article despite his attempt to torpedo my efforts. She reminded that I will be able to send out at least 6 contest entries Feb 1st for a big yearly contest one of my writers groups holds for members, and may even squeak through with a 7th--and best of all, several of the entries will mean probable sales in publications, and will definitely lighten my load in future months as at least one of the entries will mean I will likely already have three monthly columns completed way ahead of time. She reminded me that I had an epiphany in my JaNo fiction project this week, and though I may have to push to get my goal by the end of the week, the fact that I hit this "mountain top experience" means "it's tough then to come down from the mountain."

So what if I didn't get my fiction writing goal yesterday. I still have a few hours to double today's output to make it up and congratulate myself.

Part of my way of starting the new year was to get a calendar just to document my writing each day. Mine has beautiful pictures of gloriously green Ireland, and at the end of each day I hurriedly sketch out how many words I've written on each project I've worked. You would think that while I was feeling challenged I would have the simple brain power to go to my calendar, look at the progress I'd made this week, and just shrug everything off. But I didn't. It never even came to mind.

Instead, it took someone half a continent away to bring it all into focus for me. And having to account here makes me push harder each day to not look like a slacker to any of you either. I know that none of you are going to judge me--but if this group weren't here, who knows if I would push through at all. Those stone walls are awfully hard to break down, but luckily I have so many helpful people handing me the figurative sledge hammer.

accountability

Since today is really accountability day for the week, I'll do my confessing now. As you're probably already sick of hearing (I think this is the third time I've said it in this blog) I started handwriting my daily work, typing it in the next day as my review. But since I kept editing down as I went, my word count has been "little" on an average basis, and my Type A'dness couldn't take it anymore. So, for the past two days my hands went back to the keyboard and I just let the words go. A lot won't be keepers, but it made me get to about 7000 words for the week at this point. I've written a little over 1000 this morning--now I'm going to go have coffee with a friend, and hopefully I'll be so jazzed when I get back that I can write at least 2000 more!

That's my goal, anyway.

But the real reason I posted today is to tell everyone about the best tool I have in my writing arsenal. That tool is really a person--my accountability partner. I live in Oklahoma, she lives in South Carolina, and we met while taking an online class. We've never met face-to-face, but we "talk" every day through email, and I could not accomplish half of what I do every day if she wasn't around for me to toss out ideas to, vent about things I'm irritated about, and share my joy when something goes right. In fact, I wouldn't be in this group without her, as she was the one who found out about JaNo and gave me the means of signing in. Thanks again, Anne!

So, if you want your writing life to improve, I recommend finding an accountability partner of your own. While this JaNo blog helps us this month, a regular partner will help you all the days after JaNo ends.

But you can't have mine! Anne is already taken!