Writer-In-Progress

As you might know, I’m still having fictional writing withdrawals. I have those moments of weakness where I’m tempted to grab a notebook and start in on a character stalking my thoughts or a plot that won’t quit peeking at me from around every corner.

 

But I’m being strong and sticking to what I’ve decided. Not that it’s been tough–I’m a huge believer of the life theory that if you set your intentions, you’ll draw those things to you that help your intentions come to fruition, (Ok, so I’m still working on that intention to get Tom Brady to stop by for dinner after practice) and the possible writing assignments have started seeking me out since I made the switch (a profile of a Fulbright scholar for a big local magazine, a national teaching magazine looking for expertise on teaching ESL students, a request from an anthology on how I got one particular article published…).

 

Anyway, I digress (as usual).

 

In working on the article for the teaching magazine all day yesterday (the outline basically wrote itself last week), I couldn’t get the opening paragraph to work for me. It didn’t want to be about a student and it didn’t want to be a spotlight on my school. I wrote both, then just plain dove into the meat of the article. Before I went to bed, I felt a little defeated that the article didn’t come as smooth as the outline. I felt like giving up on it.

 

This morning, bright and early, as I looked at what I did yesterday then at the schedule deadline I’d given myself for writing the rough draft, I realized I have another entire week to finish the rough draft. Woohoo. I couldn’t do that with my fiction–there is no light at the end of the tunnel (unless you’re pubbed and on deadline)–but with the nonfiction, it’s a little grease on the gears to know that meeting the deadline is the real challenge. With the fiction, I’d have just given up and started a new story.

 

Don’t tell me, fiction writers, that you haven’t done that…

 

Beth