Happy Memorial Day

You don’t have to write today, but don’t forget our ol’ standby Stephen King.

He writes every day. Including Christmas and his birthday. That means Memorial Day!

So give yourself ten minutes today.

Write.

Reflect.

Imagine your character with her family. How has today changed for them? For her? What might happen? Who shows up that no one expected?

But most of all– Enjoy the time you set aside for you.

And your family.

Love, love, love.

 

I like runts. And mambas. And sour patch kids. I’m sorry.

I am dead tired.

But feeling good about life.

I also feel good about John Cusick and this interview.

He really does mean what he says and he says good good things.

I don’t have enough energy to get into my underwear situation like I had hoped. Or my marriage advice–because I have a lot. Instead I am going to encourage you all to go to the store and buy your favorite childhood candy and then set it up, right by your computer, eat a little, eat some more, and then write.

Write write write. That’s my goal. to just write without worrying about the end. Whether it will be good. Whether it fits with other things I”ve written. Whether it’s YA or MG or PG. Just write. And have fun. And maybe color. I might get out my crayons and color and write and eat candy.

We all should. Nerds and gobstoppers baby.

It’s the Final Countdown: Someone Please Do This With Me. Please.

Hello Lovelies.

Today I have much to report.

1. The Writing for Charity event was great for many reasons:

• I couldn’t put my folding chair up while everyone in my group was introducing themselves and I kept smiling and this should be so easy heh heh heh and don’t look at me until finally so nice Kristen Chandler put my chair up. I had to have someone PUT MY CHAIR UP FOR ME. I have problems.
• The breakout session was great–I got to hang out with three different but talented writers (you, Renae).
• I got to see a lot of writer friends that I never see.
• They raised a pretty impressive amount of money for a great cause–getting books in the hands of every child. Yay.

2. When I got home from the event I found that my husband had bought these chairs for our kitchen table. I like them. I also like sitting in them. In fact, as I was sitting in one of them my oldest (the three year old), he said, do you like these Mom?

I said, yes. Yes I do.

He said, good.

Then I said, I am a little worried I might fall through this hole though.

He said, don’t worry. Your bum is way way way way big so you won’t fall through it.

It is true. I will never ever ever fall through one of those chairs. It’s such a relief.

3. I got writing done. All week I kept my word count goal.

So a good week.

Then Sunday hit.

You know when you get up early. You go to bed late. You eat big gallons of chocolate and peanut butter. And you don’t exercise? You know that? But you say, my kids,  I took care of my kids. My writing. I took care of my writing. My house. It didn’t fall down.

I found out that those things are important but you can’t keep them up if you do bad things to your body.

Cam was like, ummm, are you okay? and I was laying in bed and I could not get up. I tried. I really tried. but I was so so so so tired. Even after my nap I was tired. I was zombie and aching and growing pains achy. Like I’m not eating enough bananas.

He said, how are you going to do this, school starts in a week.

I said, I know.

He said, and you need to write your book.

and I said, I know.

He said, you need to take care of yourself.

and I said, what?

and then I realized he was true.

This is all to say I have an idea.

A challenge.

Challenge #1: Word Count

I don’t want to give up my word count because I can’t. I have to get a dirty draft out now whether I like it or not.

My goal is 2001 words a day, six days a week, until the relaunch of this blog on September 13th.

I chose this goal because in his memoir, ON WRITING, Stephen King says ,

‘I like to get 10 pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words. That’s 180,000 words over a three-month span, a goodish length for a book.” He also says that when he’s working on a book, which is most of the time, he writes every day of the year, and that “includes Christmas, the Fourth, and my birthday”.

So my goal is to beat Mr. King. Just for three weeks. And I am not. NOT going to worry if the words are bad. If they are so bad I want to cry. I am going to truly write bad words (not like that) every day. I am going to do it every night after the kids are asleep. I should be writing right now.

I also saw this blog. If this girl can design and refashion a dress every day, why can’t I write 2000 words a day? Nevermind she doesn’t have a job or kids, still. Okay maybe this just fascinates me and has nothing to do with writing but I love looking at it because I could never ever do it.

So 2001 words a day, six days a week.

Challenge #2: No sugar. The WHOLE three weeks.

I may take one vacation day because of an event I have to attend that will include something I must eat but other than that, I feel that in order to be my best, I should be more conscious of my body. So I’m taking a sugar break. I’m also going to try to eat more brain food. At the Writing for Charity event, Wendy Toliver, said she ate lots of avocados while she wrote her book. I was like, duh, I should be eating buckets of avocados. that’s my problem. So these three weeks I am going to eat buckets of avocados and blueberries.

Challenge #3: Workout. At least four times a week.

And pushing my kids up a big hill counts. It counts big time. I’ve been slacking since the marathon. For awhile I was hiking but now I just sit around and talk about how I ran a marathon because what else am I supposed to talk about and this neighbor’s like, You? You?

and Yes, me.

And he said, so did you just stop cold turkey running when it was over.

I looked at him. And looked. And looked.

Then I said, yes. yes I did.

But no more! Four times a week.

Challenge #4 Go to bed at a reasonable hour. Like before midnight. Maybe even before eleven.

I know i am not getting enough sleep. I know it. And my kids and husband and writing and life is suffering because of it. So sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

That’s all.

It’s a big lofty challenge but I’m going to try. I’m also not going to beat myself up if I mess up one day or two or three, I’m just going to keep at it. If I make it with almost no mistakes the entire three weeks I am going to treat myself to a red mango on September 13th. With toppings. And my book will maybe be almost done and that in itself will be so so so happy worth it.

Who is with me? At least a few of the challenges? We’ll call it the PLEASELETMEDOTHIS challenge. Or something like that.