My Fiction Day - Competing With Myself

I've been a bit less active in social media of late due to the second novel. Since the first is about to come out, the second is expected to be complete. That's how it goes to remain viable as an author. So each night, I stop FundsforWriters and return to the fiction . . . but it's hard.

I admit it . . . I'll get stuck on a word or how to get Carolina Slade to sass her beau or how to twist a plot point, and I'll check the email. Go ahead . . . shake your head. I'm not practicing what everybody preaches--to just write and let the world go by unanswered. But for some reason, the back and forth works for me.

I've tried turning off the Internet and just using the word processor. That's when I check the laundry, then go  back. Dust a room, then go back. Check the chickens, then go back. My husband calls me a "damn frog," because if he asks me to watch a mystery on television, I'm up during commercials, doing something. And I've decided it's how I write.

For some reason, that little nudge of something different, like a hint of chutney with dinner, jars my pea-brain into finding the right words.

So when I see books, telling me to write this way, or write that way, I shut them. No two writers write the same in voice or content, so why should their writing behavior be the same?

Do your thing. Do it to the best of your ability. Just know that you're to blame if it doesn't work, and you're the victor if it does.