Writing in Motion

Rising early to begin the journey I’d set before myself, I opened my Word program and gazed at the blank page. The cursor blinked sympathetically. What will I do with my writing this year? I’d only had one goal and that was to write, but how would I get from saying I would write to actually doing it? I needed a plan.
Plan number one, no more procrastination.

No more pulling wallpaper off the bathroom walls, sorting the fingernail polish on the vanity, improving my grammar, or toying with a burning desire to see Mt. Vernon (which will require endless hours of research on the Internet). This year, I intend to write and to write often.

Anything done on a daily basis soon becomes a habit, and a writing habit is just what I need. It’s not a hard thing to do, really. I’ll just sit down with pad and pencil and do one of those free-writing exercises. Or jot down some faraway memory of falling leaves when visiting Vermont one year. A passing thought, a yearning, anything at all will get the flow going and once that happens, viola! Writing in motion.

I’ve read all the good how-to books on writing. I’ve been to meetings and listened to methods, and mappings, which certainly seem easy enough to follow. The problem lies within. I have to find the writer inside my skin. I have to sit down and drum on her until she gives in and tells a story. Then, I’ll write it.

Plan number two, no more procrastination.

No more playing games on the computer (how many games of Candy Crush can one person stand anyway?), no chatting with friends online, or pretending to research while really just reading other people’s tales of woe. This year I’m going to write. I’m going to sit in the chair for a certain number of minutes or hours everyday, and create something. Even if it’s only a laundry list of why I hate pinto beans, I will write it.

How many pages? How many words? I can hear my inner editor poking my writer’s mind trying to find a chink in my resolve. This year it doesn’t matter how many of this or that. I intend to write in spite of the questions, the insecurities, and the doldrums. I will see my writing in motion or faint.

It all begins with a few letters turning into words, which will be sentences becoming paragraphs, which will be pages turning into chapters, until I have a finished work. Simple isn’t it?

Wonder which markets are looking for articles on pinto beans as a miracle diet aid this year?