I Really Wonder How I Do It

Sometimes I really wonder how I do it. Writing that is. I put off finishing this short story I worked on today for over a year. A little while ago I decided it would be a good idea to put up a collection of short romances because I know that there are several of my friends who want to read them. It was at that point that I became bent on not even opening the document of this incomplete short story that I decided would be the namesake for the collection. Finally, on Monday, I told myself that I only had a week left of not being in school, so it was time to put my nose to the grindstone.

I opened the document and read through it, doing some minor editing, and then I reached the end of what had already been written. There was a sentence sitting there that had not been completed for over a year. How does anyone leave a sentence incomplete for over a year? I have read what I had written of this story to several friends, and yet I’ve left that sentence incomplete. Well, I decided it was time for it to be completed, so I did it… and then I lost motivation. I kept the document open, but decided to just peruse some other things while I waited for inspiration. Inspiration never came.

And so today arrives. I’m running out of time, and so I tell myself that I’m going to sit down and write it, just finish that monster off and be done with it! Well… The morning comes and goes, and then twelve o’ clock, and then one. But by the time two has nearly arrived I have at least gotten out my laptop. This ends up being a very small victory. The next hour I spend playing the dumb little games that come pre-installed. Four hands of hearts anyone? And heck, why not a few hands of Solitaire and Free Cell while I’m at it? What’s a few minutes, right? Well, it wasn’t a few minutes, it was a full hour.

 

Finally I make myself start writing at five minutes after three. Unfortunately I only last a couple hours before I get distracted by a little girl who is being babysat by my sister. There goes the next two hours. Finally I make myself sit down. I have somewhere to be by eight, and the designer of my covers (B. Peck, she is amazing! Don’t believe me, check out the cover art for Let Them Come) wants to have at least a copy of the rough manuscripts that I’ll be including to help her develop some ideas for the cover. Somehow I did it. In between being pestered by the cute little girl and taking a break for dinner I managed to finish the rough draft of the story and get it and the other manuscripts of my short romances sent off to my cover designer.

Being responsible to yourself… like I said in my post “On Writing Novels,” it is the most important thing you can do. But I still get confused when I sit back and look at any completed project and realize I have written that total of six, twenty, fifty, one-hundred and fifty pages. How can a person who is such a Nincompoop pull that off? But somehow I manage, and I still have no idea how I do.