A Writing Challenge

 Writing and stress has been worse this year than ever before.  Mostly because we have this Covid fiasco hanging over our heads day in and day out. I miss so many things like hugging, smiling at people in the grocery store (but not in a weird way,) going out to dinner, normal stuff we took for granted. 

Now back to writing... how to kick start the old writing muscle? 

Find a challenge. Yes, there are still ways to find a challenge and meet it even in this crazy land we're living in.  

I challenged my daughter, also a writer, to exchange chapters each week. So every Monday we send each other the chapter we finished that week. And yes! We are challenged to finish a chapter each week. We meet or facetime later in the week to discuss what we've read/edited. 

It's time to step up and inspire yourself. Find someone to challenge you. Make you produce a chapter a week and get that book written. 

The Missing Ingredient in Your Writing

I was just over at Blogging on the Side (whom I found on Pinterest) and realized something that made me feel stupid.
I love writing.
No, that's not what made me feel dumb.
I have several blogs, some more active, some neglected. A few that I have great ideas for but for some reason, never execute any. And then Blogging on the Side posts this one; How to hit 1,000,000 in a year of Blogging.  The biggest thing I learned from this article is discipline. Something my piano teacher once said, "We must learn to discipline our talents."  I believe this is especially true for writers.

Writers usually have a project they're working on. Whether its a book, articles for work, or other writing, actually getting the words on paper, cutting out that time slot, is the hardest part. I can write. So why don't I?

I can ask myself the same thing about dieting. It's not that I don't know how to lose weight, it's that I don't know why I don't do it. (Hic!) I almost said "I'm not stupid."  (see first paragraph;)~

Discipline. I wonder how many people decide to tattoo that somewhere? Its an often forgotten element to any work from home/self-employed career where we have to find the motivation within. The day job is easy; go to work, do what you need to do or get fired. Simple.
Writing? Not so simple. If I don't go to work I'm stagnant. I don't move forward, but I'm not going backwards.

So where's your discipline?