Challenge

Welcome Back…

Time of Great Forgetting Easing…

Yup, it’s that time of the year that those of you who went off into the real world in late April and early May are starting to return and wonder what happened to your writing and all the great things you were going to write and publish this year.

Many won’t return until early August, but this is the point writers, millions of them like giant schools of fish, are surfacing and looking around and back at the lost months of writing and publishing time.

So what do you do now?

1… Turn around and look forward. Can’t do anything about the lost time, but you can, as quickly as possible, not lose any more. And to do that, you must face forward.

5 plus months to that fateful New Year’s Eve reset. That’s a bunch of time, so set some deadlines, set a few schedules, maybe even challenge yourself or another writer.

2… Be patient with yourself. The real world will still intrude and the fall is full of real world stuff. And this year here in the States we have a critical election to start the process of getting rid of the clown car full of crooks, rapists, and sickos the country elected. That will take some attention and time from all of us here in the States. So as you set new schedules, understand what you are facing.

3… Take into account the holidays in late November and December in your planning. No point in setting up failure going into the new year. The point of waking up now and getting going is to feel good about going into 2027 with your publishing and your writing.

4… Don’t overdo it. You just came off of a time where your mind was not focused on writing or publishing. Give it time to return. Set up success, not failures.

But most importantly of all, welcome back. Face into the rest of the summer and fall and have fun.

 

2 Comments

  • LM

    I’ve actually been slowly reading through your write a book in x series from the kickstarter and just wanted to tell you that I find it super encouraging. Not because I could keep up with how long you write (chronic health issues, it’s not me just wimping out), but because it gives a principle I can run on regardless of bandwidth: just keep going back and doing a little more.

    A lot of these write a book in x amount of time by other folks kinda feel discouraging, because I don’t have bandwidth and some days I only get 15 minutes increments of not forcing the issue on getting basic survival tasks and the day job done, but your books feel doable because it’s just do a writing session. It doesn’t have to be a specific length, it doesn’t have to be low stress, just go back again.

    I had been nickel and diming my way through fiction this year generally, but it just felt very encouraging reading those books and I wanted to let you know.

    • dwsmith

      Thank you! That means a great deal to me.

      And really glad you are using them in the way they were intended, to be a pattern, not a set thing. So thank you!!

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