Just Half An Hour

I had every intention of starting my 31-day writing/blogging challenge immediately after coming up with all the prompts but of course… As life goes, the moment I decided to do it,  reasons to procrastinate started cropping up.

I’ve been promising my friend Gretchen that we would hang out so today we went to see a movie. I asked her to pick whichever one she wanted to see, I was just going to go along  for the ride… My main goal was just to hang out.

She told me she wanted to see a movie called Gosnell. I’d never heard of it and didn’t recall seeing any previews or ads of it on TV so I said “sounds good!”.

I knew we’d also have lunch and then chit chat after so I decided I’d postpone my Day 1 of the blogging challenge until tomorrow because I didn’t want to stress myself out.

If you’re doing the challenge along with me, I certainly hope that you are also being just as gracious with yourself and your time… This is a no-pressure zone 🙂

The Gosnell Movie…

Without giving anything away about this film let me start off by saying that it can initially invoke some very polarizing feelings but if you look beyond all that, regardless of which side of the fence you stand on, this movie based on real life events, was really good.

If you watch it, and I do hope you will, I’d love to hear your thoughts… Let me know in the comments below.

Write Everyday Q&A

I mentioned a couple of days ago that writing everyday was something I wanted to get back into.

Ramona Defelice Long is an author and editor and I found this Q&A on her site. It’s an inventory of questions she asked at a workshop she taught on How to Find and Use a Writing Hour, so I decided to take it.

How to Find and Use a Writing Hour

~ What is your most creative time of day? – Mornings

~ What is the most practical time of day for you to write? – Evenings

~ Do you now have an hour of writing time each day? – Not a consistent hour (not currently anyway)

~ Do you need to carve out an hour of your regular day to write? – Yes

~ What is the biggest challenge to writing at your optimum time? – Duties and responsibilities of everyday life taking precedence

~ What is the biggest challenge to writing every day, for an hour? – Finding a convenient time to set aside the hour and then remaining consistent with it

~ What can you (or must) you give up or change to work a writing hour into your day? – Either wake up an hour and a half earlier than usual (the additional 30 minutes is time I know I’ll need to just mentally gather myself and settle in) OR give up an hour of evening “down time” i.e. phone calls, TV, reading, etc., to write instead

~ If an hour is not possible every day, is an hour possible on SOME days? – Yes!

~ If an hour is not possible every day, how many minutes are possible each day? – I know an hour a day is very possible, I am just afraid to commit to putting in the effort to make it happen 😦

Preparing to Write for an Hour

 ~ How many days per week will you write? – I want to aim for at least 5 days a week (ideally though, I’d like it to be all 7 days of the week)

~ Where will you work? – Home office

~ How can you make your writing space comfortable and distraction-free? – a more comfortable office chair would be nice, other than that, once the door is closed, there are minimal distractions

~ Can you turn off email, radio, TV, Facebook, etc? – Yes; I can close all windows on the computer that would create a distraction

~ What is your warm-up plan? (journal, review what you wrote yesterday, set a daily word count goal) – Come up with a list of pre-set writing topics and then if I get inspiration for something that I haven’t planned for, go with that flow

~ What outside arrangements must you make to remain undisturbed? – ???

~ How will you record your progress? – daily blog updates will be evidence of progress and goals accomplished

Setting Goals

 ~Will you have a time goal? – No, because if I am on a roll I want the flexibility to go with it and if life happens I want the flexibility to bend and twist as needed

~Will you have a word goal? – At least 1000/day

~Will you have a scene goal? – No, because I am not writing a novel. Writing a book is not the current end-point of my desire to write everyday

~Will you have a show-up–# of days you showed up to write–goal? – Not sure what this is so I’m going to say “no”

~Will you have no specific goals? – Right now, my one and only goal is to just develop the habit of wiring something everyday

Commitment

~ What project will you work on in your Writing Hour? – This blog

~ Will you commit to seeing this project through from beginning to end? – Yes

~ Will you commit to writing every day on this project, until it is completed? – The nature of this blog is such that it might never be “completed” per se

~ Do you have an end date goal for this project? – No

~ Why is it important to you to write every day on this project? – I would like to hone my storytelling and writing skills and I think that the only way to get better at writing is to start writing and keep writing.

Now I just need to do it… Tomorrow, I start my 31-day blogging/writing challenge.