Words Words Words : All the pages not fit to print

This is a book (sort of) about writing and all the ways I’m trying to get better at it. It functions as my ‘write something every day’ dumping place and is a MuseFic about that effort. This isn’t MuseFic focused on an existing story (those will continue as normal), but more of a general writing exercise.

This story is cross-posted to Wattpad.

A Failure to Plan

“It’s been a month.” Sam glared at her Writer as she pushed her way back through the story mists. They’d gone thick and heavy with ideas in her absence. “You have to be the worst possible habit former of all time.”

“Yeah, well–” the Writer made it over to the couch and sat down with a disgruntled thump. “Yeah.”

“Life is much simpler in the self-help books, huh?” Sam tossed her Writer a beer… that was promptly changed into a Diet Coke. “So what’s the plan? Just going to trudge along with the Camp NaNoWriMo story or are you going to try and up things to 11 and get back on track with the 52 in 52 as well?”

“Actually my plan was to work on the Camp project and then come over here and try and figure out why I can’t get my writing mojo back.” The Writer downed the can of caffeine and then dug another one out from between the interdimensional sofa cushions. “I was going to use 52 in 52 to work out how to effectively write a short story… but this is a more basic problem.”

“Normally I’d just mock you and then wander off,” Sam admitted, “but I’d like you to actually finish my stories some day, so research time it is.” She dug out her laptop from the cushions of the comfy chair and got to Googling.

“I’ve read a bazillion books and articles on writing,” the Writer complained. “Nothing works.”

“Probably because you were trying to get better at it all at once.” Sam pointed out, skimming her way through various blog posts. “Everything here seems to agree that the very first thing you need to do is set aside a specific time to write. So pick one.”

“That’s easy,” the Writer shrugged. “The hour before I go to bed. I have the best thoughts then.” There was a pause. “But I’m also pretty good about writing if I get out to Panera’s on the weekends. I can get 5k words done in a few hours if I’m on a NaNoWriMo roll.”

“Thus we’re ignoring weekend writing for now,” Sam decided. “We want to chase the hard changes, not the easy ones.”

The Writer gave her a look.

Sam was unimpressed. “The faster you learn to write, the faster I actually get a story out of the perpetual limbo you call your brain.” She frowned at the article. “And apparently an hour is too long, all these sites say to start with 30 minutes or less.”

“Fine, I’ll write for 30 minutes and then read for thirty minutes. Happy?” The Writer eyed the clock. “We’re starting this Monday right? I’ve already written for Camp and for this already, I don’t know if I have anything else in me.”

“It’s the weekend, so I don’t care. But so help me if Monday night rolls around and I’m not seeing fingers on keyboards.” She gave her Writer a look that was a thousand times more effective that Writer’s previous attempt.

“Okay, okay, I promise! Sheesh!” The Writer waved away the Guilt-Trip-Look-To-End-All-Guilt-Trip-Looks and started planning out her workweek writing.

And lo, it began.

Again.

Hopefully.