check it out!

I know.  I know.  We barely post at all and now I'm going to redirect you.  Today we are over at Abby Minard's blog!  She interviewed us aspiring authors.  Please stop over at her place to check it out!   Just click HERE.  Really.  If you don't already know Abby, you NEED to (follow her).  Her blog rocks (and so does she)!

I planned to blog about something else terrific too.  However, the post ideas came to me at about 3:00 Wednesday morning while I was in between a deep sleep and a not so deep sleep during which I had some brilliant ideas.  A few of the ideas were things I wanted to say here.  The others were ideas were for my ms, the one I'm furiously writing while taking this blog posting break. (uh huh)  And let me tell you it's not going well.  Especially since every one of those ideas flowed right out of my sieve of a brain as soon as sunlight woke my five year old up from his sleep, resulting of course in my being woken up too.

I did work through my plot issues (again) while running my whopping two miles today.  Yay (not the mileage, but the ideas)!  Only... after my morning of teaching (The kids are checked out...apparently they're counting down and we're at 17 days until summer.  And I'm playing catch up since I'm a few lessons behind in math.  So I'm going warp speed, totally high energy, to keep them engaged and soaking up the curriculum before the final field trips, pool day, picnics, room cleans, etc that close out the year, stealing any extra time I might have had to boost those few students who almost got it.) and grocery shopping and picking up the kids to feed them and running to church to sort the millions of items (thankfully) donated for our weekend rummage sale and dinner and laundry and baths and games, whew, the plot has vanished from my mind once again.  But hey, now that it's Wednesday night, I'm too tired to write anyways. 

I'm sure they'll come back to me after a good night's sleep.

And so I sit here, trying to think  of just one of those ideas I had for you...and...nothing.

I'm sure it was somehow wonderfully connected to one of the blogs I visited yesterday.  I think one of them was about plot and how it's not just random events and actions that happen to a character or to tell a story, but a series of interrelated events that actually mean something and are caused by a domino effect, each event and each character affecting each of the others.  Nothing in your novel is random.  (ooh, look i found the link!)

Or maybe it had something to do with being a coward.  I read two blogs in which the writer confessed to having anxiety about sharing their work or receiving critiques.  I'm a coward.  I still need to gain confidence as a writer.  (Veronica Roth and Stephenie Messenger)

Maybe it was about how I need to quit comparing myself to other writers out there.  No, I don't view strangers on the street in terms of a thousand words waiting to be written on paper.  (@Tahereh Mafi) I stare at my ms without even ten words to write. 

Lately, words just won't come.  I freak out trying to figure out how to start a sentence.  It can't be with I.  How many "was" did I use on this page?  Holy moly.  Did I just spend three chapters telling?  Wait, the voice in this half of the book totally doesn't match the beginning half.  Who IS this character? 

So, maybe I was going to share another post I read about how we let rules get in the way of our creativity and totally stifle us with worry until we choke, afraid to make mistakes (found the link!). So instead we stare at pages and pages of white (or purple because I've recently changed my paper color in Word to lavender) waiting for the words to come. 

And when they don't, I take a break.  I go to sleep.  I watch a movie.  I read books.  (No words get written. That much is certain.)

Mostly what I need now is sleep.  My brain is mush.  No amount of wwnbd or music or writing letters to my characters or brainstorming or plotting can help me tonight.

I know that soon words will return and my brain will solidify.  Then I will write the final 10k of my second novel. 

Until then, I'm excited for our interview with Abby and hope you all go to check it out!