Slice of Life #26 - In A Rut Again

The Slice of Life Challenge is hosted by Two Writing Teachers.

I thought days 11-17 of this challenge were the hardest days...but I'm really struggling right now. I think there are a few things going on here. First of all, I'm on spring break and doing lots of fun things with my family and around the house. Writing is fun and blogging is fun, but it's nice to have a semi-break from all the computer-ness and deadlines...and yet, this challenge to write every day and share a slice of my life every day goes on. Beyond that, I think that forcing myself to write every single day is taking it's toll. It's not fun every time. I'm tired of writing, tired of finding something to write about, tired of writing something just to write something The combination of not wanting to write but having to write and not having time to write is not cool right now.

I find myself counting down how many more days of this I have to do. I'm a generally positive person but this is making me cranky and now I'm writing a whiny blog. This is not who I am.

Who I am is usually a person who looks at things and thinks about what's not working and how do we make it better. I really do have a novel that I'm working on and that I would like to write someday. I do love to write and I enjoy sharing my writing with others. But if I'm ever going to write a real book and maybe even get to share it with others, how am I going to be able to write everyday without pulling my hair out?

What I Have Learned From the Slice of Life Challenge:

1. Writing Should Be Fun! To make it fun, it's important to find something I want to or can write about. Write within my writing territories. Write what I am passionate about. If I'm not having fun, is it worth writing about?

2. Develop a Writing Routine. After making this commitment to write every day, the last thing I wanted to do at night was to open my laptop and force myself to write because I had committed to writing. Finding a way to work writing into my schedule - a chunk of time when everything gets put to the side and it's about writing - but preferably not last thing before bed, is imperative.

3. Be Sincere. Writing is such a personal experience. By blogging about my life, I have realized I can't be embarrassed about what's going on in my life. Instead, I can celebrate the wild and crazy things that are thrown my way. It's obvious from comments from others that being sincere in writing and putting my true feelings into my writing really is the best writing there is.

4. There's a Writing Process for a Reason. I'm not sure writing every day has helped me improve as a writer, but I sure do have a lot of ideas that I have written about. I think that might have been the hardest part about this challenge, the idea that I was supposed to just be writing everyday but when it came down to posting, I had to revise and edit a bit to make sure what I had really was something I thought was worthy of others reading. When I think about being a writer and continuing after this challenge, I can see how if I wasn't posting my work, then it might be easier because I wouldn't be worried so much about making sure what I had written was great. I might be able just to write without revising or editing and that might be easier in a way. Also, that there is a time and a place for revising and for editing. I need to set little mini-goals for myself as I write: am I in sloppy-copy mode or fix-it-up mode and then judge my progress based on those goals within the writing process, not as a whole. It seems much more difficult to take a piece through a writing process every single day. It's tiring!

Now I don't feel as whiny as when I started this post. I feel much better having looked closely at what I have realized from all of this writing. Five more days after this! I can do it. I'm going to get back to Disney and recap our most recent list...because I want to! And writing tomorrow's post semi-early in the day sounds like a good plan! What have you learned about yourself and your writing through this challenge? Please share!