Good morning, Writers:
There are times when I sit down to do this that I am unsure of how else to encourage, support, mentor, and motivate you to do what I know you want to do, what you should do — your story matters — and keep things interesting along the way. We’ve been at this collectively for more than six years. Clearly there’s more work to do — each and every day.
Each and every day brings me to our focus today. I think in conversations with many of you over the last couple of weeks, and I am guilty of this myself, that we have to feel each night when we rest our heads that there should have been MORE work done in our writing life. There should have been hours and hours of editing, instead of the quick lunch-time session we had. There should have been 5,000 words written instead of 500. We should have read for an hour instead of the 20 minutes before bed.
Stop it.
More and Great are the enemy of Enough and Good.
Did you work on your writing today? If you can say, yes, then you are good. You did enough. We all have struggles with the responsibilities in our lives that impede on our writing life. But, if you worked on it, if you’ve continued to make it a focus, even if twice this past week it took a back seat and you only got so much done — don’t sweat it. It’s kind of like falling off your diet. You get back on and keep moving forward.
Therefore, your prompt today is to know that each and every minute you spend is good. Feeling good about that will lead to more minutes, trust me. Before you know it, you’ll have that revision done. You’ll have that pitch done. You’ll have that short story sent out.
You’ll be moving forward. That’s enough. That’s good.
Speaking of moving forward and doing pitches, the February 21st workshop is all about the KindleScout (the replacement for ABNA). Things kick off at 10:30 a.m. at the North Bend Library’s meeting room. There are a few phrases every writer hates to hear. “It’s just not quite right for us,” definitely tops the list. However, second place winner is probably, “Tell us about your novel in 300 words,” otherwise known as a pitch. Condensing hundreds of hours of labor of love into mere paragraphs designed to make an agent or publisher realize what brilliance is being offered to them is enough to make any writer cry, on the spot, in public. The Feb. 21 workshop aims to take a little pain out of the process. You’ll be breaking down and rebuilding a proper monument to the pitch. Bring your first, or four hundredth, attempt at a pitch for the novel you are looking to shop to an agent, publish, or submit to this year’s KindleScout (ABNA’s cancellation was announced on Jan. 19th). We will round-robin them into book-selling shape.
Hope to see you all there.
Now your moment of Writing Zen:
“Everyone has a story that makes me stronger. I know that the work I do is important and I enjoy it, but it is nice to hear the feedback of what we do to inspire others.” ~Richard Simmons
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What did you Write today?
~Casz
Casondra Brewster
Moderator/Founder
Sno Valley Writes!
Helping Writers Reach New Literary Peaks Since 2008
http://www.snovalleywrites.org
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“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” ~ Lord Byron