This Is How I Write...

Just a few weeks ago, I was in the midst of finishing yet another draft of my current WIP.

I was pulling out my hair, rubbing my eyeballs, chewing off fingernails. And groaning. Lots of groaning.

And I was hating it. Hating writing.


I begged and pleaded with myself...Let me dream up ideas and characters and new problems. Let me create worlds and outlines and pages of notes. Let me revise - turn bad words into shiny ones. Move around scenes and characters. Slay adverbs and kill my darlings.

But please, please don't make me write.

But I had no choice. There's no shortcut, no detour, no way around the 'writing part'. But I fought it. Most of my writing sessions ended up going like this...

1. Write fifteen words. Erase fourteen.
2. Text CP about how bad I suck.
3. Write another word. Erase it.
4. CP texts back to tell me how awesome I am. Love that CP!
5. Write twenty words. Erase eighteen.
6. Check Facebook.
7. Write another word.
8. Refresh Facebook.
9. Delete word.
10. Refresh Facebook. Nothing. Go check Twitter.
11. Write 140 character Tweet.
12. Refresh Twitter.
13. Refresh Twitter.
14. Follow link to blog and another blog and another blog.
15. Remember I'm supposed to be writing. Go write ten more words.
16. Send 'whiney' IM to CP.
17. CP says 'I'm awesome'. Yay!
18. Write 10 more words. Realize I hate my character.
19. Wonder if it's possible for character to survive a fall off a 75 foot cliff.
20. Google it. Read articles.
21. Start watching cliff jumping videos.
22. Google vacations in Bermuda.
23. Google Adam Levine.
24. Drool over pictures.
25. Remember I'm supposed to be writing. Go write ten more words. Delete them all.
26. Check Facebook. Check Twitter.
27. Make coffee. Drink coffee. Make more coffee.
28. Call CP. Whine for about thirty minutes until she tells me to 'Go Write'.
29. Write one word. Realize I'm now up to a word count of 14.
30. Repeat steps 1-29 approximately 3,571 more times.

Several times mid-draft I wondered why am I doing this. You may be wondering why am I doing this.

But then I hit step 31 and finished the draft. Followed by step 32, where I shoved it in a drawer for a week and caught up on all the books I haven't read and the critiques I haven't done. And the nail biter of  step 33, where I pulled it back out and read all of my words.

This past weekend, I reached step 34 (my favorite by the way). I realized how much work I have ahead of me. How many tweaks and shines and rips and tears it's going to take to get this mess of words to sparkle. But it's also the step where I stepped back in awe and wonder and truly saw it....

My book.

One little crazy idea...now existing outside of me—growing and breathing and alive.

And then I remembered...

This is why I write. This is why I love it.