Okay, American sweat-people, did you write through Thanksgiving, or take some free days? Hope you’re all planning on making up for time spent feasting and drinking and generally enjoying yourselves!

Non Americans, what’s your excuse?

Let’s hear about your progress. Who’s doing well? Who’s not doing so great? Who’s racing ahead? Who’s crawling?

I’m still stuffed from yesterday’s Thanksgiving meal - last night, I was so full it hurt to breathe. Not a pretty thing - I came home and wanted to write, but could only loll around, exhausted. So I dragged out a book - an old favorite - and I simply read.

Today’s a different story - much work to be done. But the point is, reading is essential to writing. It’s easy to forget that, to keep books as rewards for when you finish a certain amount of pages written…but sometimes reading is the only way to keep writing.

This all makes sense in my mind, of course - hopefully, the sentiment’s coming across.

“Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the most. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.”
-William Faulkner

“Writing is about hypnotizing yourself into believing in yourself, getting some work done, then unhypnotizing yourself and going over the material coldly. There will be many mistakes, many things to take out and others that need to be added. You just aren’t always going to make the right decision.”

Taken from Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life [1994]

So, sweat-people, it’s check in time again. How are you all doing? Racking up the words or crawling along?

Life throws obstacles at us, but hey, just try and write a little bit each day, even if it’s only a few words and you think it’s rubbish. As the wise ones say, you can edit rubbish, but you can’t edit a blank page.

That’s me.

Right now, I’m in chaos… or rather, everything around me is.

Had to take the cat to the vet today because the evil thing keeps peeing on the carpet-we’re looking at possible diabetes, a bladder infection or maybe it’s old age and arthritis.

Also getting the carpets cleaned today…because of said cat.

Also got some interesting, possibly very interesting things going on, but I can’t really talk about it yet, but it’s frying my brain cells.

Then there’s the fact that for some stupid reason, I agreed to go help out at the MD’s office tomorrow while the regular staff does some sort of group employee type of thing-not sure what, don’t wanna know, just glad I don’t have to go. However, I’m wondering why I agreed to work.

Then there’s the book.

Yes, this is a blog for a writing challenge so of course there is a book. Or rather…several books. Right now, I’m working on Hunter’s Need, a book that will be out late next year and I’m working on a fantasy romance for Samhain, then there are a couple of other projects.

And of course, there is chaos. It’s very hard to write in complete and utter chaos.

So what I need to do, is get out the iPod, crank it up and focus on the book(s). Tune out everything else and get as much work done as possible…because really, if you think about it, there’s always some kind of chaos.

The trick is learning to block it out and get the job done.

This post is late. So am I. In dealing with the cold from H-E-double-hockey-sticks, I am late with setting up my house for the holidays, late turning in my revisions, late starting my Sven project, late late late.

When I fall behind, I have a tendency to start wondering why I’m bothering. I look at some of the Sven totals from Sunday and go — wow,I can never catch up to 25k already! Why bother trying?

But then I think about the term, “running behind.” The key here is running. We can’t compare ourselves to the other challengers (or to our friends who work full time, have newborns, decorate their homes for the holidays and STILL manage to send out those chatty Christmas cards!) We just have to run at our own pace. I may only have 1,000 words on my Sven project, but I am still running back here.

So if you’re behind, don’t give up. There are others, like me, who are a bit behind the pack.

So how did your writing week go? Making progress, or still getting started?

Post your word count results here and everyone can celebrate or commiserate together!

Since it’s Saturday, I thought I’d talk about weekend writing.

Do you write on the weekends? Is your writing a 7 day a week thing, or a Monday through Friday thing?

Mine tends to vary depending on deadlines and whatever else is going on in my life. I used to write 7 days a week, and 12 to 15 hours a day. Seriously. Until I figured out that writing was becoming my entire life. Which isn’t a good thing at all. Because while we really do need to focus on writing as a career, it shouldn’t become everything in our lives.

I discovered that I needed to occasionally take a step away, to have an actual life, to live the things I wrote about. You know, action, adventure…romance. I need to refresh my mind and give it time to rest.

So I started taking weekends off. I turn off the computer on Friday nights (metaphorically speaking, of course, because really, who can stay away from email that long? Heh) and I don’t go back to it until Monday morning. Why? Because I treat writing as my job. And I’d like to think that I can take some time away from my job. Which means that I need to be really productive Monday through Friday so I can take these weekends off.

Unless I’m near deadline and the book’s not finished. Then all bets are off.

What about you? Do you take weekends off or do you write 7 days a week?

(one of my friends sent me an email last week. In it, she told me how hard it was to write and how she felt like her muse was on vacation and maybe she’d do NaNo and Sven next year but just now she was tired and uninspired. This is what I sent her and she wrote me back and said I should post it at Sven as long as I didn’t use her name, LOL. BTW, she didn’t quit and she’s been managing 1K a day!)

It’s work, plain and simple. Yes, sometimes it feels magical, it feels effortless and the words just fall from your fingers, but most of the time, it takes dedication and ambition. Being an author isn’t just about writing, it’s about promoting and always thinking about the future. It’s about realities like rejection and sometimes it’s about envy and dejection.

When it’s perfect, those moments when you see a spine bearing your name on a shelf at borders, when you get a letter from a reader or a bookstore owner contacts you to say you’re a favorite at their store - those moments carry you through.

So please, don’t tell me writing is hard after a week of effort. I know it’s hard. I do it every day. Instead, suck it up and realize the end product makes it worth the effort. That nothing is better than “the end” Well nothing until you sell the thing! That’s pretty awesome too. But every author has trunk books - those books they love, books they think are awesome but simply don’t sell. In the end, every book you write makes you a better writer.

There are no sparkly muses. I know this is not a popular opinion but it’s my opinion nonetheless. There are no perfect moments, at least not in enough quanitity to finish a book! It’s about work. It’s about pushing yourself to get another hundred or five hundred words before you shut down for the day. It’s about not allowing yourself to watch that movie or check your email until you finish the chapter or the scene.

I’m a hardass about this, I know. Yes, I believe in mentoring and supporting but sometimes, people need a smack with the hard palm of reality. I’m f***ing so tired right now, my kids were a trial today and my husband has been working 16 hour days for the last month. But I got my words in anyway. That’s the only way I can finish this book. Bit by bit, word by word, paragraph by paragraph until I reach the end. And then I edit and revise and then it goes away to an editor.

And I start a new book, LOL.

Writing is an amazing thing. I am soooo blessed to be able to do it and to make a go of it. But it’s work. Nothing worth having is easy but if it’s worth having, you’ll work for it.

I know you’re worth it. I know you’re worth the effort and the sweat and the frustration. But YOU have to know it too. Because I don’t want to hear you whine! I want to hear you say, “Lawdy this chapter kicked my butt but I finished it!” or whatever. You can’t sell a book you don’t finish. You can’t be a writer if you don’t write.

So do it.

I basically refuse to recognize the existence of writer’s block. Just don’t believe in it. We all get stuck. You take a walk, go to Starbucks, talk to a friend, push through, or do whatever you have to do to keep writing.

The bigger problem for me each day is getting started. I can procrastinate and do just about anything - including cleaning the house and I hate to clean the house - to keep from opening Word and concentrating on writing. So, this is my mantra:

“The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” -Mary Heaton Vorse

Butt in chair. That’s the key.