The Pledge: Writing in Snippets on Day One

Twelve pages today, plus two walks on the beach, a shopping spree to the dollar store, shrimp and grits for dinner at Sears Landing and now we’re watching a movie and eating French Silk ice cream. All in all an excellent day.

One thing that helped me tremendously today was a little trick I recently picked up from Mary Kay Andrews. On one of our recent writing retreats, Mary Kay challenged us to write as many pages as possible in the thirty minutes before dinner. I whipped out five pages, amazing myself. You would think that after writing nineteen books, I’d know that I’m capable of making good use of small amounts of time, but I tend to think I can only write if I have several uninterrupted hours in front of me. I also tend to get distracted as I write, stopping to research whatever I’m writing about as though I can’t possibly put another word on paper until I know the perfect accellerant for an arson fire or the method used to name hurricanes or–my current distraction–how to kill off a husband (fictional, of course). Part of the writing-in-snippets approach is forgetting about research for the time being. No distractions allowed!

The movie just ended. John’s washing the ice cream bowls, and I can hear the ocean through the double-paned windows. Maybe I’ll steal another few minutes before bed…