Finding Focus

It's no secret that procrastination and a short attention span are my worst enemies (oh, look at the kitty!). When you've got a long list of things to work on to complete a novel, it's easy to let the list overwhelm you. With no end in sight to the "pre-writing," you start to get discouraged that you're ever going to get to the actual writing. To that end, I've purchased a large dry erase board calendar and given myself an assignment for almost every day. The weekend did not go as planned, but I am excited to mark the first "assignment" off my calendar today.

We'll see how well this sticks. Today's "assignment" went well, so I'm again choosing to be optimistic, hoping that today will set the tone for the rest of the week and in to next month. Like my grandma always said, you can finish anything you start on a Monday.

Turning on the faucet

There's a quote by an American writer by the name of Louis L'Amour. Goes like this: "Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow."

I've been guilty lately of waiting for inspiration to strike. Because of the way I want to tie the three Halnoth novels together, I need to know the logistics of each book before I can delve too deeply into any of them. I've got the first two detailed pretty well, but only a general idea on the third. Not enough to be able to lay down a solid logical timeline of events that criss-cross around the three books.

I get all sorts of ideas, all the time. I have a very active imagination and inspiration is constantly popping in to my head. Just not on what I want it to (which is probably why I have six other writing projects waiting in the wings).

Every now and then I remind myself of this quote by L'Amour and sit down to just start pounding the keys. I may not like what comes out right away, but every time I'm eventually surprised by what I come up with. And the past couple of days have been no exception. This morning I finally figured out where exactly I want to go with book 3. What I want to say.

The water is flowing.

And so it begins . . .

Office is officially installed and activated on the new machine. Downloaded all the material (for Halnoth, at any rate, to say nothing of the other 6 wip) from the cumbersome Google docs to the netbook for ease of use on the sleek Microsoft Word. 8 chapters, outlines, world creation and background, character sketches, etc. Still only a dent in what I'd like to have done before getting in to the actual meat of things.

Momentum is rolling. We'll see where it goes from here. I'm choosing to remain optimistic, as always.