Here's The Thing....

Here’s the thing about making a challenge to oneself and putting it on the internet; it takes away the anonymity of weaseling out. Which, I will have to admit, I was tempted to do. Let’s face it; sometimes, writing is scary. I’ve described it to writing friends as sticking an ice cream scoop in the writer’s gut, grabbing an generous portion, plopping it on a plate and offering it to strangers.

That’s moi, by the way, for today’s picture, photo taken in a church reception hall bathroom and then fiddled with in Photobucket. Because I do those sorts of things. Click to embiggen.

So, anyway, writing. Secret tip #1 – I can make myself go from nothing to write about to being able to get something down by starting with “here’s the thing…” I don’t know why that works, but it does. Not the most useful thing when writing on an actual historical romance manuscript, but when it comes to freewriting, “here’s the thing” does it every time. Don’t ask me where I got that turn of phrase from. We writerly sorts are master eavesdroppers and that’s where I’m assuming it came from. Somebody used it in public and then it stuck in my mind forever. Thanks for the inadvertently useful trick, dear stranger, whoever you are.

The thing about the thing is that it fits in with something said by the facilitator of a writer’s group I attended years ago. In that group, we wrote to timed prompts, and were to keep the pen moving during that time. It didn’t matter what we put on the page. The goal was to get something down. Anything. We didn’t have to share if we didn’t want to, and we didn’t have to use the prompt, but we were to keep the pen on the page. As the facilitator said, the process begets the content.

There’s only so long one can write “I have no idea what I’m writing” or the like before some exasperated character will push themselves to the front of the writer’s consciousness and decide their story is more important than counting the number of lines left on the page, or venting one’s spleen about whatever real life annoyance has one’s knickers in a bunch. Sometimes, though, there has to be that bloodletting first, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Same thing as clearing the junk off the floor before attempting to dance on it. Only way to do it is to do it.

Two more days to complete my week. Got a question about writing, reading or the romance genre in general? Shoot it at me in comments and I might blab about it in days to come. Now go be fabulous.