Laziness

I’ve often said that writing is like going to the gym – once you skip a workout day, it’s easier to skip the next workout day.  With writing, when you decide not to write for a day, or not to write as much, it becomes easier to blow it off the next day.

When I first arrived to my current residence of employment, I was able to write between 15,000 and 20,000 words per week on Fight or Flight.  It was necessary because this was the largest novel, in terms of volume, that I ever attempted, and I had to knuckle down if I wanted it done before I started collecting Social Security.  I’d write 2,000 words four days a week(it takes me about an hour to write 2,000 words if I’m on a roll), and 5,000-6,000 words per day on the weekend.  As such, I was feeling pretty good about myself.  Then I finished that novel…

After finishing a novel that comes in around 220,000 words, I decided to take a break.  I felt burnt out from such a massive undertaking, and I figured a month off would recharge my batteries.  Wrong!  Not writing at all during that month, except for the occasional blog post, atrophied my writing desire.  When I took up my next novel, my prowess wasn’t nearly as high.

This has followed during my days writing my latest novel(which still has no title).  The novel is only 90,000 words in length, and it should’ve been completed by the middle of March.  My goal was a modest 10,000 words per week…mere peanuts compared to what I did for Fight or Flight.  However, while the creative process still flows, breaking the inertia and actually writing has been hard.  I’m lucky to get 10,000 words in a week, and I usually average 6,000-8,000(more often than not being on the low end of that).

The only way I can explain it is that I feel lazy.  Although I’m doing more than I used to, I’m still not back at peak form.  Think of it like you took a month off from working out – at my age, it takes me three times as long just to get back to where I was before I took time off, let alone get in even better shape.

Don’t rush your work, but be cognizant to know that if you stop altogether, starting again is rough.