author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Did very little today but write, for a change. Only it wasn't the short story I'm meant to be working on. It was the "trunk novel," the one that will probably never see another reader's eyes. It doesn't even have a working title or a slot in my manuscript database. What it is, is a bedtime story I've been telling myself at night and embroidering on for at least fifteen years. When I get to where I'm feeling like a total impostor, like writing is totally beyond me, like all the recent workshop experiences taught me is that I'm talentless and lazy, like I can't finish a new story and the older ones suck too much to burden yet another editor's slush pile with, I work on this one. Because it reminds me that writing is fun.

I'm convinced it's the only way to successfully beat writer's block: make writing fun again. Write something that doesn't matter to anyone but you, or practice the bits you find easiest whether that's dialogue or description or journaling or gawdawful purple prose. There's a reason you decided to do this words-on-paper thing. Go rediscover it.

Addendum: On writing from the place where writing is what you love. Via retterson, via beth-bernobich.

And maybe the trunk novel might see print someday if I manage to excise the Mary Sue factor. It's already loads better than it was in my head, when the main character was explicitly me and the leading man was whoever I had a crush on at the time. They're now both actual characters, which is nice, and makes me blush less when I reread it. But she's still a gosh-darned Mary Sue, so you're not reading it yet. So there.

Tomorrow there will be work on the short story. But after the boat gets a hole, you gotta bail the boat and patch it before you can point it in the right direction again. Today was for bailing. Tomorrow's for getting back on track.