I don’t know about you, but this has been a difficult challenge for me. I had some medical crap going on for the last couple of months, the cumulative effect being that I had the energy of a slug. Not a happy place to be. Not only did it hit my physical energy, but my mental energy. I was idea-less. Creatively? Zilch. Basically, I stopped working for longer than I have since I became a professional writer.

It’s been horrible. As much as I’ve wanted to write, as I’ve needed to write, mostly, I just had to be a lump in bed. The one thing I was able to do was read.

Maybe, just maybe, that’s why it happened. Of course, it would have been sweller if my reading other people’s books would have generated some income for me, but that’s beside the point. The reading has been glorious.

I know it’s been said that we writers need to read to fill the well. I know this and yet what always seems to fall by the wayside as my writing fills the days? Sadly, I tend to put off the reading portion of my life.

Fool!

The reading, I’ve rediscovered, is essential. It’s is the lifeblood. The marrow. I read widely, from thrillers to Harry Potter, to mystery, to romance, to futuristic. I read some books that I thought were so-so, and some that made my heart skip and my tears flow.

It made me realize once more what an incredible thing it is we do. And it made me want to do it better.

I’m feeling better now, and I’m starting in on a new project. This is how my deep, long swim in novels has changed me: I’m looking at my plot from a completely different angle.

I’ve gotten to the point where the book structure is something I don’t have to worry about. Especially in the books (Blazes) I’ve been writing for so long. But what I saw when I pulled out my outline was that while everything was in place, and everything made sense, I had shunted the character development to the background. I trusted I’d get it. I’d write, and the characters would develop and evolve. I knew their flaws and their goals and their strengths, and that had been enough. Only it’s not enough.

In every book I read that I loved, it was the characters that made all the difference. It was being with them - in them - when they screwed up, when they tried and almost made it, when they reached out - that had me transfixed.

I’m not even sure I can put down how it’s all changed for me, not eloquently, at least. Maybe not even simply. I just know that the way I look at them isn’t that they’re these two characters who are blond or brunette or tall or short, and they’re on an adventure or that they’re searching for love, but that I love them before they take their first step. I already see them as whole, as complete, before page 1. This new view has given me a completely different approach to character flaws and what they mean.

Okay, I’ll stop babbling about this because it’s not all neat and tidy, but man, I can not wait to get to the book. Of course I have no idea whether this new angle of vision will change my writing, or if it simply means I’m even crazier than ever, but it sure feels like one gigantic aha!

So - in addition to asking yourself if you’re doing all you can to write your pages - are you doing all you can to read? To give yourself the opportunity for an aha! moment by reading brilliant stories? I hope so!

“The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.”

Here’s something I’m working on, and I figured I can’t be the only one, so here goes: I have the discipline of a thing with no discipline. Honestly, I amaze myself regularly at the things I will allow to distract me. For instance – a doctor’s appointment. Not a major one, not for anything serious, just, say, a checkup. I know I’ve got several hours before the appointment where I can be writing. But if I have any leeway, even a teensy bit, I will give myself silent permission to screw around instead of getting the work done.

Now if I’m pushed up against a wall, you can bet I’ll be working. I’ll be typing in the doctor’s waiting room on my Neo. I’ll only take breaks when I absolutely must.

It’s when I’m not up against the wall that my brain will conveniently forget that THIS is why I get myself into the up against the wall, no sleep, coffee jitters, no email, desperately writing situations.

I’m not stupid as a general rule. In fact I’m not someone you’d want to meet in a dark alley with a Trivial Pursuit game. Yet, even with Sven, even with all this support, all this logic, all this concrete evidence that it will make my life better, calmer, easier, I still will use the most lame-ass excuses to NOT WRITE.

When I, for whatever reason, do manage to sit down and start writing, inevitably, the writing goes well. And fast. And when I’m finished with my pages I think to myself that I’ve finally figured it out. All I have to do is start. Then voila. Problem solved.

Until the next day, when I realize that Fed Ex is supposed to deliver my box of hangers, and therefore I give myself permission to screw off.

Brilliant, no?

So let’s talk tricks here. Not for plotting, or dialog, or creating sexual tension, but for getting the ass in the seat, getting the hands on the keyboard, and doing the pages we’re supposed to do.

What do you do? How do you do it? And, um, since you’ve figured it out, can you please come over and finish my book for me? I’d really appreciate it,.

I started writing novels because I needed to find a way to make a living while working at home. Nothing noble about it. I wasn’t passionate about it, in fact, I had dreamed my whole life of becoming a movie producer. I got sick and had to quit the movie business, and in fact wasn’t able to go to a regular job so I had to find something that would support me. I figured I could write one of those little romance novels, no sweat. It didn’t work out quite as smoothly as I’d hoped (ha!) but it did work out. I was driven by necessity, which is one way to get ones butt in the chair. In fact, necessity keeps putting my butt in the chair, as I don’t relish living in a box under the freeway.

There are many roads to publication, and only one of them is having a deep desire to write.

How come you’re here? What puts your butt in the chair? And what’s going to keep your Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard?

“The best stories don’t come from “good vs. bad” but from “good vs. good.”

I had a moment a week ago that maybe you’ll relate to: An idea hit. And when I say hit, I mean smacked me in the head like a two-by-four. This idea was pretty well formed, although no details were included, but that’s not the part I want to talk about. It was the idea itself-it immediately scared the crap out of me.

I know someone could write the hell out of this story. It has the potential to be evocative, compelling, surprising, and emotional. The question was, could I be that person? Do I, in fact, have the chops to pull it off?

The truth is, I don’t know. I could knock it out of the park, or I could write the whole thing only to find out it’s not something I would want on the shelves.

This is a good thing.

Fear is healthy. Fear is the thing that makes us stretch, that takes us to the next level.

When we’re first starting out, that fear is very present. Can we do this? Can we tell a story that’s cohesive, that has a beginning, a middle and an end? That isn’t repetitive, shallow, stupid, derivative? Can we evoke emotion in the reader? Sadly, the answer is most often no. Most people who try to write a novel don’t succeed. It’s just the way it is. If it were easy, everyone would be published. Sometimes the answer is not yet. That’s a good place to be. It means there’s more work ahead. The apprenticeship is ongoing. With dedication and a willingness to learn, a willingness to be afraid and do it anyway, there could be a career ahead. To a few, the answer right out of the gate is Heck, yes! But even those who sell the first book still have - and need - the fear.

If you’re lucky, even after you’ve published a book, or several, or dozens, you can still be intimately acquainted with fear. It’s easy to become comfortable, but is comfort what you want?. Because the only way to be comfortable as a writer is to write what you’ve written.

In the interest of honesty, there are writers who have long, lucrative careers built on writing one book over and over again. There are readers who count on the sameness for comfort and ease and love those writers.

So, perhaps I should have said that comfort is the death knell for me and for writers like me. Writers who turned to writing because most every other career seemed too boring. Who need a constant challenge to get the juices flowing. One of the things I love most about this gig is that after 40+ published novels, I can still get scared.

I know Sven is about forming habits and giving yourself the opportunity to stretch your persistence, your dedication and your commitment. There are also a number of ways in which to fail this challenge: give yourself an unreasonable goal, create chaos in other areas of your life which gives you an excuse not to write, let one or five or ten days of not hitting your goal convince you that you can’t do this thing. It’s pretty easy, and a lot more comfortable not to keep your word and do the work.

But may I suggest asking yourself some critical questions - questions that aren’t just about the Challenge, but where the Challenge is representative of your ultimate goals - Do I want Comfort? Or do I want to prove to myself that I can accomplish that which feels undoable? Do I let fear own me? Or do I kick fear’s butt?

Let the Sven Challenge help you nurture your relationship with fear. Just as developing a pattern of writing on a daily basis will give you the tools to do the work of a successful career novelist, facing and overcoming the fear of the Challenge will serve you well with each new step up the writing ladder.

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

“Dreaming and hoping won’t produce a piece of work; only writing, rewriting and rewriting (if necessary)–a devoted translation of thoughts and dreams into words on paper–will result in a story.”

“There is no perfect time to write. There’s only now.”