Okay, so yesterday I wrote 4,100 words and got to a grand total of 10,000+, so yay!!! I still spend too much time procrastinating but at least stuff is getting done. I find myself still spending too much time looking at my phone and too much time thinking about other things. But at least something is happening. It would be nice if I could add 5,000 before we leave tomorrow. That’s kind of my loose goal but if it doesn’t happen I’ll be okay.

I did figure out the mean thing my character is going to do that she’s going to regret later, so that’s cool. I didn’t even know that was going to happen until this morning.

Yesterday we played scrabble and quiddler and banangrams. I won the first two and I won a couple of rounds in banangrams. I’m ver competitive, lolz. I try to act like I’m not, though. At least sometimes.

No hot tubbing yesterday. We were all too tired from a full day of writing. I wrote some outside but when it got cold I had to move back in. Today it’s still below freezing and there’s ice on the porch so I’m sitting up in bed and trying to write this way. I would lay down on my front but I did that yesterday for probably about five hours and my back was displeased by the end of it. So I’m trying something new.I also have the laptop resting on a pillow so I hope I don’t short it out with the heat or something. I’m going to have to remember to check on that occasionally.

I like my main character in this book and I like the other people too. I hope when I am done the story is all that I planned for it to be. There’s a few things already that I’m not sure about, but I can always go back and look those over when I am done. The important thing is writing through it, I think, and getting a complete first draft. Oh, how I would like to have a complete first draft again. It has been far too long since I have had a new one. It’s time. It really is.

I wonder how I can keep my momentum going when I return home tomorrow? Being alone, being by myself – it’s worked wonders for my productivity. It also helps a lot to have others here, to compare myself too. If they’re working, I need to be working. And although I haven’t done any actual writing yet this morning, I have done my walk-n-talk to work through some issues in the story and find out what I’m going to write next. And I’m doing this blog, which I assume is good for the writing muscle or whatever.

I still have the distraction in my mind but I’m able to push it away a little better here. That’s important if I want to reach the goal of a finished novel. And my critique partners think this is the one that’s going to sell quickly. I hope so. I hope it’s not ridiculous when it’s done.

I’m sitting at a tea shop about thirty minutes from my house right now. It’s Feb. 2. Groundhog’s day. My cousin’s birthday. Yesterday was an important day for me too, for different reasons. It’s not something that I need to share, but I did want to commemorate it for myself, if nothing else. I can at least say that it’s the day that started me on the spiritual journey I find myself on every day now.

Turns out one negative of having a spiritual journey is sometimes you can’t write as diligently as you used to. I haven’t written in my old way for two years now. Before Feb. 1, 2016, I wrote a lot. I was writing every day, pretty much. Weekends I gave myself a break and only wrote fanfic, ha ha. But after that date, when things changed, it was harder. I wrote one chapter of a fanfic for Valentine’s Day that year and never took it any farther, even though it was an amazing, stellar idea. Since then I’ve written so much less. I worked on a novel but I really didn’t do anything like I wanted to. And I didn’t finish it. I still want to. I also wrote the first three chapters of a proposed write for hire project. And I did rewrites on my finished novels and wrote new scenes. I suppose I have blogged as well, but it’s sporadic. I’m even posting on social media less.

So here I am at the tea shop, hoping that a chance of pace will get me back at it. I started an amazing idea in January and got 5,000 words on it. Not enough, but a reasonable start. My friend Kim (who my oldest daughter referred to as her mom’s book friend) will be here in a bit. She’s very kind to try to help me get my groove back.

So that’s about it. Ready for this to be the year. The year of everything.

And now I need to work on the manuscript instead of procrastinating any more. At least I don’t know what the wifi password is here (and I’m too inverted to ask, lol).

I wrote exactly two words before midnight on Day 6, in an effort to write something every day.

I didn’t write anything yesterday, and I doubt I will today.

In my defense, I did have a lot of stuff going on yesterday – two appointments and critique group. So I had to drive to the city early and then come home and get everything ready for critique group, plus deal with the small people that live here, and then I had to go to the city again in the evening.

Today…didn’t have as much to do. But I’m still having a hard time getting back into writing. I haven’t been able to write very much since early in 2016. I want to get back into my work but it’s just not working. My mind is other places – sometimes good, sometimes less so.

I’m still planning on writing tomorrow. Even though I have to take the smallest one to an eye doctor appointment and then there’s probably some other stuff that I’m forgetting.