It's Alive

Thanks to a suggestion from one of Beth's carpool buddies, I managed to bring my computer back to life. Actually, it wasn't the computer that was the problem, it was a bum cord. Replaced the cord and I'm back in business. Though I did my writing on the laptop this morning, which wasn't too bad. 1663 words today. Would have gotten more but had to deal with some Real Life stuff that may help with my deteriorating financial situation. I'm not holding my breath though.

I had fun writing today, despite all the stress of late. I thought that was worth noting. Sometimes (a lot of times) we forget to have fun with our writing. We grow so serious about it, clench down, stress out. If that's what writing does to you, what's the point? So even though my "inner critic" was mouthing off at me ("Cops don't talk like that!" "You just repeated yourself again!" "Don't you think this scene's gone on long enough?") and even though at the time I still thought all on my hard drive was lost, and even though I'll be lucky if I can pay all my bills this month, I still had fun writing. I had FUN. I was reminded the other day of Ray Bradbury's book Zen in the Art of Writing. He talks about the "zest" and "gusto" of writing. He encourages the writer to lead with his passion, running so fast through the story that everything else (the critical mind, the day's troubles, whatever) is left behind. Heck, one of the chapters is titled "The Joy of Writing." If you haven't read this one and you feel like you've lost the fun in writing, pick up a copy. I think I'm going to reread mine soon.

Anyway, I'm afraid of heights so I'm going to step down from my soapbox now.

Happy writing. And have fun, damnit!