With all the soul searching going on about setting New Year's resolutions, I wondered if I'd ever find something concrete to hang on to. (Read previous blog on resolutions for some drifting.) In two ways, I've had mini breakthroughs.
One is in my approach to building a habit of daily writing for my story. The approach of looking at the numbers (word count, page count, time limits) weren't doing a lot for me. Approaching it from the other side, the reward...now we're talking! Rewards deserve fireworks. I'm on a celebration delay. :)
That's a big part of resolutions; the incentive of a reward. But what kind of reward? It has to be personal and something you really want to do. If a movie at the end of the week is a real treat, then that's a good reward. But is really something that inspires the task of writing? Is the reward something you'd really withhold from yourself or do it anyway? That's not such a bad idea, actually, to make the reward something you regularly do. The important part though is making the bargain that the reward comes last.
Writing a blog is my reward. True, call it rather a narcissistic (sp?) reward, but it fits as a personal thing I really like to do. The only problem is when I talk about writing before I actually write on the story. Or, instead of the story. I often take the reward first.
It seems to make sense, for me anyway, to tie the two, writing a blog and writing on the story together and flip them. The end result is simply this: that anything I write about in this blog is a direct result from my daily writing session.
No random topics for a while. My bargain with myself may change, but for now it seems to give me a good shot at establishing a routine and, if not a daily story writing habit, one I feel a little less guilty about. It may sound limiting for blog topics (especially if I didn't write!), but in many ways, it's the opposite. Two days of actual writing gives me lots of material. Do I need to talk about it? Well, yeah. :)
Part II comes from what I worked on in the story today and yesterday. Ever have a breakthrough in your story at a point you didn't even know you were stuck?
What is your writing reward? Come on, be a little narcissistic with your rewards. What did you write on today or yesterday? You did it so feel free to talk about it.
