Learn to Listen…

If You Can Hear Yourself, You Make Better Decisions…

This last week I had a decision to make about getting my writing restarted. Kris had come up with this great summer challenge idea to keep her focused on her writing through the summer. It is called the Kris Summer Motivation Challenge and I have written about it a number of times and yes, there still is six spots open. Sign up on Teachable. Information in previous blogs.

So my decision as to what to do with the challenge for me was three-sided.

1… Was it too early in the organizing and publishing process to bring the writing back in?

2… If not too early, did I want to start a 250 words-per-day streak?

3… Did I want to jump in with 7,000 words-per-week, which for me over the decades would have been a very bad week as my minimum. In other words, jump all the way back into my writing.

I got some great suggestions at the webinar on Friday and finally here is how my thinking came down.

I have thirty of the forty or so collections put together and 80% of my short fiction organized, so the answer to question #1 is “Yes, ready to get back writing.” No more “What’s the Point” that killed my writing last spring.

And for the second question, my stomach just twisted at the idea of another streak. I have this blog streak at 13 years or some-such-craziness without missing a day, so I listened to myself and realized a streak would not do it.

And doing 1,750 words per week would mean I would not write for five days and then get the words done in one. I know myself.

So since I wanted to focus on the writing, I picked the average of a 1,000 words per day, about one hour for me per day.

But all the way through the process I kept checking in with myself, and this answer “feels” right for me for the summer.

I don’t always have this kind of clear process, and I have been known for going down strange roads with signs that say “It Seemed Like a Good Idea At the Time.”

But this time, with this fairly simply yet important decision on returning to my original writing, I listened to myself and an really excited about the summer challenge. And doing the motivation videos and the webinar discussions.

Suddenly for me a long hot summer looks like it will be a ton more fun.