Themes

My friend, Morgen, and I had lunch Sunday with a third friend, Geoff. We talked about blogging. Morgen said something about not knowing what she would blog about. That she felt she'd have to come up with a theme before she'd even think about it. Then this morning Pat wrote in The Writing Nag about themes for blogs. She had a blog before and didn't enjoy it until she came up with the idea for the Nag.

The idea I had for this blog was very much like D.B.'s. I'd talk about the joys and trials of writing a first novel. But I think it's grown into much more than that in the few weeks of its existence. It's become about community and friendship. It's about the fact that although we each do the physical writing on our own and we spend many hours inside our own heads, we also help and encourage and torment and cajole each other. It's about how there is a subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, collaboration between writers. That we pick up on things the other has written and expand it or take it in a whole different direction.

I guess that's why I always feel a moment of confusion when I hear people talk about how lonely being a writer is. Really? Because even when I'm alone in my office, I can send out an email with a question (or a whine) and have a couple responses within the hour and even more by the next day. The same thing with the blog.

The theme for today is feeling very lucky.

Homework: Part I

Yesterday, I completed the first part of my revision homework. I made a list of important scenes and arranged them in a logical order. This was done in my new notebook, purchased for the occasion even though I have at least 30 brand new notebooks of every shape and size already. But it helps to have tools that are specifically for a particular purpose/project.

I have the printout of the manuscript for Part II of my assignment. This one may take a couple days to complete.

But I'm on my way!

Obligations

It's been almost a week since I updated this blog. My goal is at least twice a week. Of course, my writing goals were even more ambitious this month, and I haven't really gone near any of them. Why?

Other obligations are intruding. But I'm wondering to just what extent I'm obliged to do these other things. This morning I said no to an event I thought I was obliged to attend day Saturday. It felt great. And the person hosting the event even responded with a "good on ya" for saying I wanted to spend the day writing instead. Cool. And since I'm not doing something I don't want to do during the day on Saturday, I can attend an event I want to on Saturday night without being exhausted. Cool. How many of the other things could I or should I have said no to over the past few months?

So what do you feel obliged to do that interferes with your writing? Is it a real or an imaginary obligation?