Surges and Stalls

When writers claim they write X amount a day – so many pages, so many words – as if they write at a steady pace, I think they lie. I’ve imagined this as some kind of goal to aspire to, and I’ve totally failed.

I write in fits and starts and surges and stalls, depending on my mood and my health and family events and where I am in the story and, I swear, the phase of the  moon. There are so many elements interacting I never know where I’ll be tomorrow. I just know today – good writing day, useless, okay – and that has to be what it is.

As long as I write every day – good, bad, useless (well, I skip the bad days; that’s just work I have to toss later) – if I write almost every day, I make progress. The story grows, even if it comes in fits and starts. And other projects emerge at the same time, as I distract myself with new ideas. I play and wander and gradually progress. A slow meander, I suppose, that eventually gets where it needs to go. I just need to learn to relax to the journey.

Maureen