Writing is a form of mental calisthenics. You are exercising different parts of your brain depending on the kind of writing your are doing. Writing a journal is like running around the block for fun. You\u2019re not really pushing yourself. You\u2019re mostly just getting your blood flowing.<\/p>\n
Writing for someone else to read, on a limited range of topics, with a target length in mind, and with a deadline is more like a carefully planned free weight routine. You have particular goals in mind and you have thought about the parameters that will help you achieve them.<\/p>\n
Winning National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo to its friends) is a step up. The criteria is to write 50,000 words between November 1st<\/sup> and November 30th<\/sup>. What you typically have on November 30th<\/sup> is most of a 1st<\/sup> draft of a novel. Unless you are a genius of a writer, it isn\u2019t anywhere near ready to publish, but with some work, some help, and several more drafts it may turn in to something.<\/p>\n Winning NaNoWriMo is like running a half marathon. It has the decided helpful attribute of giving you a specific timeframe and a goal, in short a deadline. Deadlines are important for writers. They\u2019re important for programmers too but that\u2019s an entirely different blog post.<\/p>\n And then there is the next step. Learning to set your own deadlines, to schedule your own time, to make those writing dates with yourself and keep them. This is where I am right now. I\u2019ve started taking part of my lunch hour to write. I\u2019ve start scheduling one night a week to go out somewhere to write for a couple of hours. I try to get some extra work in on the weekends. I am in training for NaNoWriMo which is going to tax my schedule to the max. But this year, I don\u2019t intend to stop when December gets here. I\u2019m going to keep up the pace. I have a full dance card and I intend to keep the words flowing.<\/p>\n Between now and November first I have a short story to polish up for the Huntsville Madison County Public Library short story anthology that is due to be published sometime in November. I also have a story planned for the library\u2019s horror story contest that is due March first.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll make much money as a writer but I do intend to give it a serious try. I think most writers are compelled to write. They would love to make money doing it. In fact, it is often the only way they know to make a living. I am lucky that it is not my only means of supporting myself, just my preferred way.<\/p>\n Sweet dreams, don\u2019t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Writing is a form of mental calisthenics. You are exercising different parts of your brain depending on the kind of writing your are doing. Writing a journal is like running around the block for fun. You\u2019re not really pushing yourself. You\u2019re mostly just getting your blood flowing. Writing for someone else to read, on a … Continue reading “The Writer as Athlete”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kellie.wildroseandbriar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kellie.wildroseandbriar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kellie.wildroseandbriar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kellie.wildroseandbriar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kellie.wildroseandbriar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kellie.wildroseandbriar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1577,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kellie.wildroseandbriar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions\/1577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kellie.wildroseandbriar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kellie.wildroseandbriar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kellie.wildroseandbriar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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