How Being Tired Can Make You a Better Writer.

I just read the above article and realized that I rarely write when I am tired. One reason, is that my characters seem to reflect my physical needs. When I am hungry my characters sit down and eat, when sleepy they go to sleep, when the needs lean erotic… Well, without those pesky characters doing anything worth writing about, I tend to follow their lead.

Ms. Lamb, also, brought up the fast writing idea that pushes the critical thinker down so creativity can thrive. I can’t imagine writing a book in two weeks, called Fast Draft I have 10 novels written through NaNoWriMo which stands for National Novel Writing Month. Which is a misnomer now, as it is International, usually done in November. The idea is you write a 50K-word novel in 30 days. So my first was written between the Ides of March through the Ides of April. I wasn’t successful with the word count so I started where I left off, in November and gained 50K more words. Another time I wrote a ‘NaNo’ in June. That worked well. The next year the NaNo site set up Camp NaNo, which didn’t work well for me. Mostly I do well with the encouragement of writing friends. But sometimes I find other people to be a distraction. Sometimes the goal must be internalized and unannounced to others. In that case, maybe a two week write-a-thon would work for me.

On the other hand, the reason my novels are not published is EDITING. The verbal vomit is as messy to clean up as the yuck the cat leaves on the floor. I want to point to someone else to ‘clean it up.’ I wonder if there is an equivalent  of the stuff that amusement parks use for people messes, for writers?

I receive Kristen Lamb’s Blog through email. I always find a nugget to chew on. If you haven’t been by, check her out.