"You Are Here" by IMustBeDead - deviantART.com

First of all, for everyone concerned, happy belated holidays.  I hope you all enjoyed yourselves responsibly, ate a lot of crap, and laughed at stupid stuff.  I know I did.  🙂

I keep saying I’m getting caught up — and I am — but I still haven’t gotten back into a habit with writing and the blog.  But rest assured, these things are happening, albeit in tiny little chunks.

I vetted Part 2 of a story I’m in mid-draft on at yesterday’s workshop.  Without going into the mind-numbing details of why I found myself in such a precarious (and unfortunately familiar) position, let me just say that my workshop starts at 5:30 and I stopped writing at 5:11.  It was meant to be Part 2 of 2, but I ran out of time and had to turn it into Part 2 of 3.  I got right up to the final confrontation where the dogs circle around the approaching monster, and then it was, come back next week for the stunning conclusion of “Working Title”!

As I’ve said before, I’m not a big fan of sharing work before it’s finished as it usually burns up enthusiasm that’s better saved for finishing the damn thing.  Not only that, you’re dealing with a first draft that has glaring consistency errors.

*But all that said, I’ve really enjoyed doing a serial in-progress story like this.  The feedback I’ve gotten from my fellow writers has been both heartening and energizing, not to mention inspiring.  (I’m ing-ing, I know.)  A few things got smoothed out in discussion thanks to their suggestions.  But the biggest encouragement were the “Aw!”‘s at the end when I cut it off.  Made my whole writing month!

And thank goodness for my writer’s groups…and the deadlines they bring.  I think if it weren’t for the fact that I have specified dates to meet up with fellow writers and share work, all the craziness of this past month would have shoved writing to the back burners of my back burners.  I’m not crazy about how minimal the work has been this month, but I’m happy that I’m still doing it.

It’s funny how it’s so easy to push aside your greatest passion in order to deal with insurance paperwork, grocery shopping, and laundry.  It’s one of the greatest lies we tell ourselves, that this other stuff doesn’t take much time and it needs to be done, and we’ll get to our greatest passion in a minute.  The truth is, all that other stuff pretty much gets taken care of in the forward momentum of our living, and that our energies are best expended towards what makes our hearts quicken with joy.  At the end of our lives, we will think of the book that we did or did not write, but we won’t think of the coupons we did or did not keep organized.

I have been quite mowed over by Things That Need To Be Done Right Now these past few weeks.  But now I find myself at a nice, comfortable spot.  There’s really Nothing That Needs To Be Done Right Now.

So today I’m regrouping.  I’ve got several stories that are awaiting final polish and prints.  I have to get those closed out and off my desk.  I have to write Part 3 of my workshop submission and revise the whole thing.  (My big ambition is to have my submission printed and ready to go before the day of the workshop.  Wouldn’t that be wild?)  Then I’ve got to jump over to a horror story and finish that for my monthly writer’s group (which is already due in 3 days!).  And then it’s on to the script/short story I’ve been dying to write…and hoping to write for Script Frenzy.  Time is running very short.

But anyway, that’s where I am.  How about you guys?  Anything new?  Hello?

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* It does make me wonder how I would feel about a work-in-progress if it was not well-received, or if I was doing this with less than supportive writers.  Would I continue writing it?  Therein lies the danger, I suspects.