MINDY LAWRENCE of MPL Creative has kindly allowed me to reprint some remarks she had shared by email.
This might be helpful to others, so I admire her courage in allowing me to include her name on this post.
Also, I know a technique that Mindy—or anyone experiencing fear or writer’s block—can use to encourage a breakthrough. Watch for it in RELATED TOPICS at the bottom of this post.
Here’s Mindy:
“The closer I get to ‘10K Day,’ the more I am sweating. I haven’t produced anything over 1,000 words in a long time. I reached for my copy of FEAR OF WRITING and held it, white knuckled, reviewing all the reasons to just let it fly.
“I’ve been starting one story after another and dead-ending after a paragraph or two. I get started but find nowhere to go from there. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about the ‘where’ and concentrate on the process.”
UPDATE 6/18/09: Despite the fact that Mindy was deep into preparations for a trip she was taking the next day, she racked up 5,000 words during her 10K Day! During one of her check-ins, she said, “Eye opening things are happening.”
UPDATE 7/6/09 “This weekend I wrote 2200 words on my novel. I attribute my surge in writing to the 10K Write. Now I have 7200 words on my book. I plan on having a manuscript completed by the end of the year if at all possible. Thanks, Milli, for priming my writing pump. — Mindy”
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RELATED TOPICS
Writer’s Block? Use the Whiplash of Your Inner Critic to Make It Across the Drawbridge
I know how Mindy feels. It appears scary. I'm with her all the way here. My biggest bugbear is being a hypo-critical self editor, I always want to tidy up as I go. I must learn not to that and just plunge right in – but getting to the plunge position (possie for Milli) is the scary part. But! having committed, I guess it's go! go! go!
I'll be here or y'all.
Al
Milli, I think Mindy hit it on the head. Less is more now with Twitter taking the lead on the mini-fiction front. I am far too wordy for Tweeting — but a thousand words is about my max. LOL
When I wrote fiction, I pared my flash fiction to no more than 200 words. And yes, like al1801 said it's that inner editor working away non-stop. Take out 8 words put in only 3 that leaves 5 words for the next development in the story sort of thing. "Say it tight and you've said it right!" Which is about as opposite of the 10K as you can be. That's the challenge!
It will be difficult for the inner editors to turn off. But you have a lot of great suggestions for 10K success. My suggestion for today would be to look them all over, write them down and keep them handy. They will be your friends during the 10K. 😀
Yes! That's me. I've been writing 400-800 word articles for so long that I've forgotten how to write fiction. I haven't even read any of my favorite authors in ages–nothing but non-fiction research material.
I grabbed a Nora Roberts earlier and sat on the sofa with it. As I read through the first chapter (she is so descriptive) I thought to myself, "I don't know how to write descriptive anymore, I don't know how to write THIS anymore."
But Thursday, I am determined to write something that is totally fiction that contains nice descriptive words. Something completely made up.
I know I can do it. I have a very short piece on the homepage of my website that I wrote. I used to write only fiction. You can view that at http://pattistafford.com, the title is "Writer's Lament". A bit fitting for this 10K challenge. LOL.
Best of luck to everyone! We can do this–we can at least write something. For those who've been stuck writing articles like me- if we can get at least 200 words of a fairy tale down, we will be on our way to being back in the game. 🙂
I'm excited and just have to share.
Mindy might have some fear about the 10K Day but she's plunging right in. She was going to write before and after work on the 10K Day, but she wrangled to get the day off and just got the news of a YES!