Lazy Sunday. I’m experiencing another lazy weekend morning. I woke up, on my own, around 7am. Hasn’t happened in awhile.  I remember when I used to wake up at 5 am, easily.

I used the peace and quiet to edit a prompt I had entered into a contest. I wasn’t going to edit it, but I thought I’d better not try to act like I’m perfect or anything. Writers can be incredibly narcissistic. My words are golden, because I wrote them. I don’t want to delete any of them! In the end, the feedback was useful and I managed to add some things, move some things around, make sense of it all. I think. I hope.

I have yet to begin work on my 2nd prompt, due February 16th. I had some ideas but I just haven’t started writing it yet. Hopefully I can get some quiet time today to contemplate, get something down so it can be edited later. Maybe I need the pressure of a deadline? Need to get started though. Give it time to marinate. 

I’m having a really good writing month so far, as you can tell by my GYWO Word Count tracker in my side bar. Coming along, coming along. Really only because I’m counting my blogs, too, but 500 words on a blog is a drop in the bucket. I have to get back to my long form WIP’s sometime today. And I’ve yet to even start chapter 2 of Caged Bird Singing. I’m just… blocked or something. I don’t know. I think maybe I think my premise is stupid.

I feel like I have this long list of things I have to do and I’m not making any progress.  I keep chipping away at it but it keeps growing. It’s starting to stress me out. And when I stress out, writing becomes less fun and more work and then I don’t feel like doing it. I think what I need to do, to feel more accomplished, is finish something. Concentrate on one thing and do it. And then move on to something else.

My only problem, when I do that, is tunnel vision. I stop reading books, I stop reading other people’s work, I stop doing all the things that inspire me. My writing gets lazy and dull, it has no shine or brilliance or introspection. It reads like a diary entry and not like a novel.

I hate that.

Where is the balance?

Yesterday I had two friends read my short, posted in the entry just below this one. I had expressed some disappointment that in all three of the places that I posted this entry, I got no feedback on it at all. Either people didn’t read it or people didn’t like it. If they didn’t read it, did it seem boring? Too long? Not their genre? If they didn’t like it, why not? Predictable? What you would expect to read, based on the photo? Nothing. So I’m left to think it’s either perfectly fine but not memorable, or positively awful and no one will tell me what makes it so awful.

Anyway, it was nice to get some concrit on it, and after a good night’s sleep I edited it some to bring out the points we discussed. I tried to expand it, but the words just didn’t come. In the end, I left the length pretty much intact, and tried to sharpen the words that were there.  I even managed to delete some. Saying more with fewer words. Progress.

I’ve got to get out of bed and get my day going, or I’ll be here all day. The earlier I start on my list, the sooner I can get to my writing. YAY.

Pen in hand,