Trying to Write

by Elizabeth

Trying to write. Trying to write. Writing, writing, trying to write.

My plan was to have the first draft of my WIP complete by our annual retreat. That's coming up soon, and I have been making progress, and I might even yet make the goal.

Trying to write. Trying to write. Trying to find time to write.

But life has slammed me with circumstances that add more than the usual wife/mother/part-time employee stress to my life, and finding time to write is tough right now. How to balance the things that must be done, the things that should be done, and find time to write? Which really, should fall into that first category, shouldn't it? Must be done.

Trying to write. Trying to write. Finding time to write. Finding more and more in the writing.

The good news about this weird situation is that the story is unfolding in ways I hadn't expected, those famous oniony layers peeling away, and some characters that I thought mattered shedding right along with them. (Like the brown skin on the outside, trashed.) The story is enriching, developing, twisting and turning and hopefully in ways much less cliched than this sentence. Characters are dancing together, names are changing, people in the story are rising to the front and demanding to take their rightful part. This is a good thing. But.

Finding time to write. Finding time to write.

Finding time to sleep.

I might get it done. I might not. Either way, I am going to be okay with this, because if it's not done on December 1, by December 4 it will be much further along. This is still a self-imposed deadline, and if I don't make it, I haven't failed. I've just worked with what I've got right now, and I don't want to rush to the next draft, the one that is much closer to the one that will hopefully land me an agent and a book deal.

I just need to try to write. Find time to write. Keep on writing! And get a little sleep.