When my wife broke her leg on October 1st (our wedding anniversary, dammit!), I ended up taking a six week break from writing to care for her.
I would not do anything different. I did learn something about procrastination. Why it is such a killer for people. When you write every day in a disciplined manner there is an invisible force that takes hold of you as an author. It is the opposite of procrastination. The vocabulary fails to have a word for it so I am going to call it Momentum.
When I bagan to try and pick up where I left off, if was tougher than I thought it would be. I had to go back and read what I had already written, something I never do as I write. In that six weeks I never stopped thinking about the story. I worked with my writers group on the title and cover. I worked with my illustrator to finalize the cover.It came out really nice.
But my Momentum was lost.
At this writing I am still trying to get back up to speed. The lesson I learned is that I write novels so quickly because I NEVER STOP. No breaks. No procrastination. No pausing to go back and review. No second guessing yourself or your outline.
Hammer through never stopping.
--Make every month a NaNoWriMo effort. The Lesson is the power of Momentum.
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