Guest Blog!

As the headline states today’s update is my much talked about Guest Blog. Rebecca Emrich, the mastermind behind the great blog Living a Life of Writing, and I recently exchanged posts for one another’s blogs.
As some of you may have seen she has been doing several different inspirational series and currently she has been tackling the topic of Writing Retreats and Mentoring. Be sure to head over there and check out her stuff, personally, I’ve found the things she has to say to be really inspirational. It was such a good experience for me to contribute to her blog, and I am really quite thankful that she took the time to contribute to mine as well.
For those that have been following, I have not been keeping any set structure to this blog, so when Rebecca asked what I wanted her to talk about my answer was simple: anything.
Imagine my surprise when she picked a topic that I myself am very guilty of more often than I want to admit. Procrastination
So without further ado I present Rebecca Emrich:


What's challenging when you write?

That's the question I've always had to ask myself, how does one person get about 3,000 words done in a day and I'm happy if I get 750? It wasn't until recently that I looked over my answer. Because I'm happy?? no, no I'm not! but that doesn't make me want to write more.

For me it's the art of procrastination, the fine art, which I'm sure everyone has. You can plan and plan and dream out what you’re going to do. Really all this means is that you're thinking. While thinking and planning are good, and I do this often, the commitment part is harder. It's not as if we can't, but we make excuses. One of my friends, over an evening of discussing writing, (This is a guy thing... so the effect didn't work as well on me) said to drop the "pro" "ination" add a couple of letters and you get: Castrate.

Every guy in the room looked sick. The point is that when you're happy with "just" you are doing exactly that. I think it's because we want to do better that we get angry at the ones who won't let anything get in their way. Yes, I know, you have kids, you only have twenty-four hours in a day, you need to work, you need... Do you need to write?

Gotcha. See, many of us find a million excuses not to write, or edit or do something we all dislike. But we in the end lose; it's not easy to think of what we can do, when we're finding things not to do. I love writing, and it comes first, well second, I have two girls under the age of five. I still find time to work around this. Coffee is great. So is not going to the latest movie, or reading the new bestseller. I have work to do. Each day I'll work about 6 hours on my book. It's in the second edit. Still it should be done soon. My editor also thinks like a reader, and thank goodness for that.

Writing can be challenging, but it's also fun. There are ups and downs, but if you're committed to being a writer, this will be the most important thing you can do for yourself. Commit to write.

I'll need to say thanks to Andrew for allowing me to guest blog here. I hope to see you on my blog. Enjoy Andrew's as well.
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Thank you, Rebecca, for such a thought provoking post! There is just no easy way around it, no matter how you want to excuse not writing; by procrastinating we all are really castrating our work. I know when I take too long away from a project it can be very difficult to get back into it, to get back into my characters heads and remember the way it is that they think.
How many projects have we all set aside unfinished? Personally, I can’t even answer that question there has been so many, but as Rebecca said the key is to stay committed.
Please take a moment to share your thoughts on this topic. Although we have been discussing writing specifically it really applies to everyone, even people outside of the artistic fields. How often do we find it a lot easier to set aside what we really want to accomplish for a simple and short lived distraction?