So I took the weekend off from writing. I spent lots of time with the fam. It was great. Relaxing even. I didn’t stress about word counts or edits or anything like that.

Yesterday I did my NaNoWriMo postmortem and that got me to thinking a lot about what I did all throughout 2012. The ups, the downs, the trips, the falls, the spills, the good days and the bad. It’s still on my mind and I will be writing it up.

What I hadn’t thought about was momentum. I didn’t sit down until after 9PM last night to actually write anything. I had intended to sit and write a lot earlier, but the way the day had gone and the amount of stress from things going wrong at work to a degree that had me flustered all day left me drained. So when i sat to write I did something I haven’t done in a long time. I stared at a blank screen.

I didn’t just stare. I couldn’t figure out what I was going to write. My mind felt as blank as the page I stared at. I went back, re-read the previous chapter and…

blank

So I did what I always recommend if the words aren’t coming. I hadn’t had to do this in a long long time. I got up and poked my head outside. I listened to the cars go by. Took a deep, cleansing breath, felt the chill in the air, listened to the dogs bark. I just let all the days stress go.

I went back inside, I sat, and I typed one word. Then I typed another. Slowly at first, but I built up speed. After roughly 35 minutes of typing I had nearly 1000 words and I felt good about that. I have a good idea where things will go in the next scene and things will explode. A character will reappear. Things will move more than they have in the previous couple of chapters. I hadn’t written Golden West in over a month so it was tough to change gears.

But like I said, this reminded me about momentum. Yes, I can type fast. Yes, I can write many days in a row to build up a large word count. But momentum here worked in two ways. One was against me, the other for me.

Against me because I was working on one piece, V&A Shipping II. I was full steam ahead and cranking out words like nobody’s business. I was writing nearly every day and putting out some great numbers.

It was working against me because I needed to write something completely different. A different era, different characters, different genre, different point in the story, different tensions. Everything about Golden West and V&A Shipping II was different and it wasn’t easy to break stride and change gears. Yes, writing is writing, but momentum is everything.

This got me thinking. Once I finish V&A II, I’ll be working to finish Golden West Season I. Then I’ll do Golden West Season II. This will clear that off my schedule for next year. I know how long each episodes needs to be now. I know how long the season should be. I know what will happen next year. It’s just a matter of getting the words written. This is how I’ll use momentum in my favor. This will free up my mind to focus on one task and one task only instead of trying to jump around.

At some point this month I need to work on my writing schedule. I know how much I can write in a given month now. I know how long it’ll take me to complete a novel. I know what those novels ARE! I just need to get my schedule set and start writing to that schedule.

Then I need to plan what I’m releasing and build a loose schedule for that. There is a lot to do. I’m glad I’ll have the last couple weeks of the year off. I need to do so many things in that time. I think I’d better get at it.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!