Thursday, September 10, 2009

Back to the Basics

Day two of the schedule went well. I'm exercising like I want to, I've curtailed my out of control TV watching (plus the snacking that goes with it), and I'm writing again. I'm actually writing on and off throughout the day, but... I'm not producing nearly as many words every day as I have in the past. In fact, I don't even know how many words I'm writing a day. The reason?

I've gone back to the basics. I'm writing this WIP by hand - red pen, trusty five-subject notebook. And you know what? It's working for me. I write while Darling Daughter's doing her online Astronomy class and while she's working in Excel for this semester's Business Math (her computer doesn't have either internet access or the spreadsheet program). I also write while Hubby is watching the news, and I can even work during the Yankees - as long as I stick to commercial breaks.

Whoda thunk that working sans computer would be so freeing? Not me, certainly. I'm a techno-child from way back before Windows was invented. Hell, I wrote my first program in Basic in 1986. (When it ran, it displayed a koala holding a banner that said 'G'day'.)

Anyway, I'm cranking along - albeit nowhere near 50+ words a minute. What I'm doing is writing a chapter and then typing it all into the computer, editing as I go. The first chapter's already in here, and I've got most of the second waiting to hit the electron stream. Maybe once I get back in the groove, I can sit here again and zip through, but as long as this is working, I'm sticking to it. Anything that gets the words out is peachy in my book. (And peachy for my book.)

Pretty good considering I thought wiping out those 30K words was going to derail me. Now I've hoisted my caboose back on track. Look our November*, here I come.

Have you ever gotten through a slump by falling back on unconventional means? Dish the details - in case anyone else needs a tip to get over their own.

*While I don't actually participate in NaNoWriMo, I try to celebrate National Novel Writing Month by writing as much as I can. During November a couple years ago, I wrote most of my third book. I finished it two weeks into December.

1 comment:

  1. I'm glad things are working out for you!

    I used to write with a pen and paper but I type so much quicker nowadays... And honestly, I've tried mixing it up every once and a while to keep things new but I find my thoughts move a lot faster when I'm typing. I think it's because I don't have to wait for my hand to catch up with my mind. At least, not as much.

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