Comment

Comment by Nadine Feldman on February 16, 2010 at 8:20am

This was timely! Yesterday I woke up depressed, fatigued, and out of sorts. Between moving, putting in a new garden from scratch, marketing one book and querying another, I realized that something significant was missing: creative writing time. So, I pulled out a notebook and jotted some notes about the next novel I want to work on. It's going to be "chick lit," and far less serious than other projects I've worked on...and I'm jazzed! Even the research I need to do sounds like fun. I love the "tall glass of water after a desert hike" analogy. So true.

Comment by Deborah Siegel on February 14, 2010 at 6:16am

Go Bev! And Cristina, I'm so glad the word by word approach (which, of course, is inspired by Anne Lamotte's bird by bird approach) helped you on Friday. It's what allowed me to get my dissertation done, after a year of writers' block, and it's become my motto ever since. Good luck with the new script!!

Comment by Cristina Pippa on February 13, 2010 at 12:53pm

I was actually reading the fruits of your "She Writes on Fridays" on Friday when I followed your link to the Writer's Dilemma post and the article that inspired it. I particularly loved your motion that we "put something new together word by word." How nice to take a breath and look at writing that way, instead of page by page or scene by scene. You inspired me to put some time in yesterday afternoon. And to come back to it again today. I'm working on a new script and plotting it out word by word instead of getting lost in a vague big picture. Thank you!

Comment by Bev Murrill on February 12, 2010 at 5:18pm

I'm writing lots of email, if that counts. Also writing several articles for Liberti magazine and working on the beginning of the book...

Comment by Deborah Siegel on February 12, 2010 at 4:40pm

Solidarity, Julie, Marion, and Gabriella!

Comment by Gabriella West on February 12, 2010 at 3:51pm

For me, finding a call for submissions on an erotica readers website, dusting off an unpublished story, revising it a bit, and submitting! I knew I wouldn't have a whole ton of time today, so it felt good, doing this.

Comment by Marion Roach Smith on February 12, 2010 at 3:24pm

Thanks for asking. This morning I finished making the requested copyedits on a book on how to write memoir. It's my fourth book. I'm very excited. And I followed up on lots of comments on a recent blog post. You can read that post, as well as the comments, here. I also taught a three-hour Master Class today in which 12 people are writing memoirs, so I did some serious editing as well. This was a good writing day for me. I feel very blessed.

Comment by Julie Jeffs on February 12, 2010 at 12:45pm

I was thrilled to see your idea for She Writes Fridays. I, on my blog, recently did something somewhat similar in that I too felt that I was not putting enough effort and time into my writing, either of my blog or any other type of writing, and so I tried to make myself accountable to my small but loyal followers, that I really was going to do what I had said I was going to do, I was going to be a writer! I promised them and myself that I would schedule time every day to write, it may be lousy writing but it would be writing and I would at least put forth the effort. Then life of course kind of got in they way. My elderly father recently moved to Philadelphia from California, he stayed with my sister and her husband about an hour outside the city until he could take possession of the apartment he rented. My sister and her husband had a long-planned vacation to Belize at about the same time as dad was to move, so I went to Philadelphia to help, both to be there for dad and to help with the work of moving. And so much of my promised writing schedule went out the window. I tried not to beat myself up for it though, I was going to be in Philadelphia for 12 days and hopefully I would find time to write somewhere. I did write one blog post while there (Beginning a Life at 50
). Then of course the record breaking snowstorms hit Philadelphia while I was there, which seemed to slow things down even more. I finally got a flight home to Nashville last night. On the plane ride home I started reading Lorrie Moore's "A Gate at the Stairs" and started to worry that I maybe was fooling myself, that I could never write as beautifully as Ms. Moore, what was the point.
Then, to give me hope again there was my e-mail; including a lovely note or two from Kamy Wicoff, more members joining the group Bloggers Let's Make it Work, and then I opened She Writes this morning and here you are, with your own way of getting back to writing, the writing you want to do.

So thank you Deborah for helping me to get back on track. After spending some time on a project I am working on for She Writes (more news to come soon), I plan to spend some time writing, maybe a blog post but certainly some writing, because I want to. Hopefully I will get back to my own promise to write daily, but definitely I'll be there with you on Fridays.

Happy Writing!