I now have my laptop back, and my desktop is fully functioning. Over the last few days, I’ve made some good headway, and have been making up lost ground — I’ve already made up for three of the five days in which I had been unable to write.
It feels really good to be writing again, I must say. Since I have gotten into the habit of writing six or seven days a week, it’s become a comfortable part of my routine. It was very frustrating skipping nearly a week’s worth of writing. I think that’s the key — once you get to the point where you feel bad about missing a day of writing, not because you know you have to write just about every day, but because you want to write everyday, you’ve reached the first stepping stone to success (note: when I say success, I mean however you choose to define success, whether it means simply finishing a book, getting published, or whatever else it may mean to you).
It seems that it’s taken about six weeks to get to that point — where a daily ritual becomes habit. It’s also taken the realization that the word count is always going up, getting closer to that goal. I’ve often found that it can be difficult to see the trees for the forest — 300 words (the smallest tree I plant on any given day) isn’t a big hunk out of 110,000 (the forest I’m expecting to end up with), but 300 words each day still gets you to that inevitable goal. I’ve gone from the frustration of feeling like I’m so far away to the joy of seeing my progress on a regular basis.
I do think having this blog has helped tremendously. Beyond the support from my readers (and I do thank you all for the kind words you’ve relayed), it allows me to see my progress over time. When I first started the blog, I had just broken the 30,000 word mark. I’m now at more than double that. Realizing how far I’ve come is a huge motivator for me.
I’ve also come to realize that I don’t need inspiration to sit down and write — the act of sitting down and writing instead inspires itself. Now I will say that I get the occasional “that’s brilliant!” moment, while sitting at work or driving around somewhere, which then inspires me to write the next passage in the book. Yet, even when I don’t get those moments, I don’t worry too much about it. Once I start writing, while the first few words may take a little time to get down, the words eventually pick up momentum and fly out on their own.
It feels good to write, and it definately feels good to be back at it.
