Today’s challenge is to show up for your writing and write about it.
Oh, tough one, Measly Jar!
To be honest, I show up every day for my writing in some shape or form.
As a bare minimum, I write my diary and complete my daily gratitude journal. Last Christmas, I received a copy of Donna Ashworth’s daily journal “Words to Live By” and I’m completing that too. I’m enjoying the challenge of completing it. Her prompts are thought provoking and I’m trying my best not to overthink my answers. It’s a weighty tome so I am currently contemplating how to keep it on track when I’m away for a couple of weeks next month. I’ll figure something out, I’m sure.
Today as I write this, it’s a Bank Holiday in the UK and I’ve definitely shown up for the “planning meeting” about my writing. My focus for the past couple of hours has been my blog- yes, this blog- and planning out the posts for the next few weeks in an effort to work out how many more I need to write to cover the dates until I return from my summer holiday in mid-July. I generally try to keep a couple of weeks ahead of the game with my blog as I don’t like to feel the pressure of “needing” to write a blog for the current week. I also don’t like resorting to “On Holiday – back in two weeks” type of emergency blog posts. They feel like cheating.
Apart from this post, I have two more to come up with and I’m covered until mid-July. Go, me, being all planned and organised! LOL And, no, I’m not giving you a sneak peek at what’s already scheduled. You’ll just need to be patient.
Where I’ve perhaps not been so good at showing up for my writing is in the evenings when I have time set aside to work on my current “book baby”. This one is turning out to be a bit of a “baby elephant” – two years and then some in the writing so far. I’ve blogged about it before so don’t intend to repeat myself but since The Big Green Gummi Bear’s passing in October 2023, I have struggled to get back into the flow with it.
At the start of 2025 I promised myself that I would make a concerted effort to get it written and I am getting there. It’s just all taking much longer than I am entirely happy about. The words are finally beginning to flow more freely so I now feel more confident about completing it. Even that was serious doubt for a while! Do I feel confident enough to share any of the finer details yet? No!
There’s also a distinct difference between showing up for your writing and your writing showing up for you. Getting the two in sync can be tricky I’ve discovered.
Most evenings I sit down at my desk prepared to write for an hour or two. Some evenings the words flow and before I know it, I have a thousand words on the page; some evenings I’m lucky if I add a hundred words. Over the years, I have learned not to force it. If I try to force the words onto the page, I invariably end up scrapping them the following night, rendering it time wasted.
There’s also writing “housekeeping” to be done on a regular basis. As an Indie author, there’s no marketing team behind me, so I set time aside, usually on a Sunday, to schedule the promotional social media posts that appear on my author page. This is also the time slot where I set up any book giveaways that I have in mind. Marketing and advertising aren’t my strong suits, but I try my best.
Have I risen to the challenge today…. Ask me again in a few hours.
Coral McCallum 