If it ain’t broke…

This has been an intriguing past few days for me. And I mean that in a good way. Mostly, I think it comes down to my realisation that I’ve fallen in love with writing again.

It’s a pretty cool feeling, right…when you’re doing something that you enjoy so much you lose track of time when you’re doing it? And you can’t wait to get back to it when you’re doing something else? I mean, as writers, we all know that feeling of stalling — of doing anything but sitting down and writing. And I chalked up my resistance to that entirely normal, if not completely rational, feeling.

What I failed to realise was that my health problems and the difficulties in my personal life were taking a toll on my writing. The problems with my husband came to a head at the end of the year, and the stress caused by this was even more far-reaching than I suspected.

This is why I’m so glad that I decided to do the writing challenges like ROW80 and 12 Stories in 12 Months. They’ve been the motivation I didn’t know I needed to keep me writing. And I’m pleased with the progress I’m making.

I had four main goals for this round of ROW80: 1) post to my blog at least once a week (check), 2) 12 Stories challenge (problems signing in are resolved, deadline is next week, and I had a great story idea that has me incredibly excited), 3) write in my journal daily (getting much better with the consistency thing), and 4) read a short story every week (can you believe I’ve been so enthusiastic about my own writing that I completely forgot about this one? Ha! I mean, completely spaced it out. But I’m okay with this particular lack of progress.)

I also had an unofficial goal of creating a writing routine more reliable than sporadic. But it dawned on me that sporadic has been working for me for quite a while. Recognising that every successful routine must have some flexibility and that with my husband out of work and home all the time the only routine I could do would have to have more “flex”’ than “regular” in it, I decided to let go of that idea. Just let it go. Those words can be intensely freeing. I’ve been happier, more relaxed, and more productive since I made the decision to let it go. It’s the writing that I care about, after all, not the routine.

So, all in all, the past few days have been productive and relevatory and exciting. It is my hope that other writers have also had good things happen for them.