Welcome to the 2014 A to Z Challenge. My theme for this year is why I shouldn't be participating. Thank you to David for writing the post that got the voices in my head working against me
Gobbledygook is what usually comes from my fingertips when I force myself to write. No one wants to read that, let alone a full month of it. The general consensus seems to be that, as a writer, one should sit down for an allotted time each day and write whether you feel like it or not. That's not for me. I tried it for two of my many years of NaNoWriMo, and while there are a few good scenes in those novels , I came away with two projects that I was really disappointed in. Should I have taken those two years off? Probably. Or at least allowed myself to write short stories instead of attempting to take on full novels while being overloaded with life and unable to concentrate on writing during what should be my peaceful, merrily-mind-wandering, writing time. So force it? Not for me.
We all have our own work styles. The key is to find those work styles and work with them--and never let anyone else make you feel bad about it. Blogging every day has no impact on my writing whatsoever, but I freelance write as my day job. On a typical day, I probably write 5,000 words easily. I don't see that taking time off and not writing a single word really makes my skills rusty. Although it does tend to make my bank account pretty empty!
ReplyDeleteI don't write well when I feel like I HAVE to sit down and write, but I know there are some who do better work when they allot that time to do so.
ReplyDelete