Looking back on January 2006

Wow. This month has really whizzed by and the scary thing is I don't feel like I've accomplished much. I started out with all these great writing goals. Following Stephen King's advice (not to me personally, he he, but to aspiring authors in general ) I planned to write 3 hours a day. That maybe lasted, oh, one or two days. And not in a row.

Then I decided not to be so hard on myself and write only on my days off work. I only work 3 days a week (or nights to be exact) but they are 12 hour shifts and sometimes I end up "losing" a day just catching up on sleep. And then something would come up on the weekend, and before you knew it, I had maybe only written one day that week.

So, thouroughly disgusted with myself, I sat back and tried to analyze what's holding me back. And because I love to analyze, I finally found something I could sink my teeth into. I'm not writing as much as I would like because I'm not writing the way I started out a few years ago. I've always been a natural born story teller. But now that I've become "educated" in the art of writing the story, some of my umph seems to be missing. I'm worrying too much about all the "parts" that need to be in my story. You know what I'm talking about. GMC, internal conflict, external conflict, black moment, etc. etc...

I'm not saying that you shouldn't have those things in your story. And God knows, I have to start with a plan. But I think I've just been overthinking things lately. As my pal Mel says, I have to go with my instincts. And since she always gives the best advice, I know she's right. Now, if she'd only believe me when I say my instincts tell me that Sarah Tennessee is gonna win The Bachelor...