I managed 216 new words yesterday. Not much but progress is progress, so I’ll take it.   At first I wasn’t going to write anything, despite my plans to do so.  I’ve really been struggling lately with actually putting my butt in the chair and my hands on the keyboard and working on any of my wips.  Yes, I have a lot going on both professional and personally, but even taking that into consideration, there has been a tangible block to me writing.  And I believe, no I know it’s been more mental than physical.  But I received a  call last night from a friend, who happens to also be a writer, and I was inspired/encouraged sit down and do something after our talk–which oddly enough only focused on writing for like 5 mins of our nearly 2 hr conversation.

So even though I didn’t want too, and even though I needed to go to bed within the next 20 mins,  I pulled out the laptop and tackled a brand new scene in my UF wip.  And with no plan or outline I might add, just a general thought I wrote down while doing my narrative outline last week.  Amazingly, it went well.  I’ve been so busy lately doing other things like workshop and program outlines, critiques, and brainstorming (all things I enjoy doing), that I’d forgotten how good it feels to let loose and just write.  Once I tapped into that special place, the one where the natural words, cadence, ideas and imagery lives,  the words just flowed.  Yeah, it was only 20 mins and yes, it was only 216 words, but I was enough to get me back into the swing of things. I got my mojo back, I got the jones for that feeling back, I got the excitement about my story back, I got the confidence in my words and my abilities back.  Those 216 words are so much bigger than the number seems.

I tell ya, Zen is the plane on which no inner critics exists.  As a writer, I’ve got to learn to tune out my left brain better when I’m tackling right brained activities.  There is a difference in the creative skill set needed to write vs the one needed to revise.  I’ve also got to get back into my daily writing habit, even if it’s just 216 words a day I manage.

“Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not words.  Trust movement.” ~Alfred Alder

I’ve decided to trust movement.

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