Whenever I push through a big writing marathon, 10 or more pages in a day, I always have to have a few down days afterwards. I keep a running Excel spreadsheet to track my progress on my different writing projects: How many pages did I write today, this week, this month? A pattern emerges: I’ll write 10 pages, then three days of four or five pages a piece, or perhaps even one or two.

When you’re in the midst of something like Seventy Days of Sweat, it’s easy to look at these low-output days as “failures.” Why haven’t you written more? You were able to do ten pages yesterday with no problem at all. What happened?

But every page–every word– is forward motion. Maybe you only had one page, but you unraveled a knotty plot issue. Maybe you needed to refill the well. Maybe you needed to sleep more than four hours a night.

We’re in the second month of Sven now. Have you fallen off the wagon? Have you never gotten on? Are you worried as you see those days pass by while your numbers haven’t budged an inch? It’s okay! It’s not too late! Write now, today! We all have days, or weeks, or even months, where the well is empty. Where we have no words.

Take a deep breath. Smell that fresh breeze, filled with potential? It’s the second wind.

Write.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 1:02 am and is filed under Diana Peterfreund. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.