Keeping Up

I know a writer should write every day. I can confirm the benefits. My Palm Beach Writers Group can confirm the benefits. If you want to be taken seriously as a writer, you must sit down every day at the same time, with no distractions. Your manuscript will begin to flow if you block off several hours. By returning to the work the next day at the same time, simple grammatical errors, timewarps, or contradictions in plot and character will appear glaring. Similarly, the storyline will flow more easily. It is a job to be taken seriously.

I have not been able to do this lately. First of all, we were flying to join our family in New Jersey for Thanksgiving. I took up some Christmas gifts, all wrapped, since we will be returning for Christmas. Nothing was more important than our visit or the preparation.

Now, with Christmas upon us, I am almost ready. We will again be leaving Florida and the gifts are done. Although we are not putting up a tree this year, there are Christmas decorations all around our apartment. I have begun working on Christmas cards. In addition, we are seeing visitors who come down from up north and local friends for dinner. We will have a cocktail party.

I know that neither the holidays nor regularly scheduled activities nor exercise routines are excuses not to write. The final straw to keep me from writing is the extraneous stuff necessary each day to be a writer - the blogs, the emails, the websites, the newsletters, etc.

The blogs are necessary and informative that appear in my "Inbox" every day. They are from publishing groups, agents, and marketing specialists and I have subscribed to them all. I need them for specific agent listings and insights into the writing/publishing process. But do I need them to appear EVERY SINGLE DAY?? Some of them are so repetitive that it's just too much.

In addition, there are the two local writers' groups I belong to. One is informational and a terrific support group. That group validates me as a published author. The other is a critique group. The writers in the critique group are honest, positive, and insightful. Both groups meet once a month, and I really enjoy them. Right now, though, there is no downtime to even READ a book.

I'm not complaining. I'll prioritize. It's just that there's so much more to writing than just writing.