3. . .2. . .1. . .We're almost there. FEBO begins in just two days. There's still time to set some writing goals for the month of February and to join us in reaching our goals.
Here's a timely post from a FEBO participant. . . .
Hi, I'm NancyE, and I'm a member of The Writing Academy and of the St. Davids Christian Writers Conference. For both of these organizations, I have given a presentation on Daily Writing Practice. The concept is inspired by various writers-on-writing, particularly Natalie Goldberg. Her "rules" are in her book Writing Down the Bones. She recommends writing 10 minutes every day--and she suggests doing this for a whole year before starting on more ambitious writing projects. She and other writers say they continue with the daily practice even after they are regularly publishing writers--it's a way of warming up for the day's work!
I embarked on the practice and kept it up for a year. Yes, I did 365 daily writings--though sometimes I fudged a bit and let a daily writing do double duty, like brainstorming for something else I had to write. Since I don't like so-many-minutes, my guideline was "12 pt. Times New Roman, space-and-a-half spacing, no less than one page and no more than two." (I discovered I could do a page in 20 minutes.) As Patty says, we can make our own rules!
The truth, though, is that I had an ulterior purpose in my year of daily writings. I was "getting ready to start to commence to begin" (as my sister-in-law used to say) writing my memoir. After the year was up, I decided to move on to "starting to commence to begin." This stage, however, is not only vaguely defined, it has not proved to be a regular "practice."
So these are my two resolves for February: To do Daily Writings again (that's 29)--AND to write the beginning of my memoir. I'm not specifying how much "the beginning" will be, in number of pages or words--just "write the beginning."
If anyone is interested, I can share some of the suggestions and prompts for Daily Writing Practice from my presentations!
Happy Writing to everyone,
NancyE
3 comments:
NancyE. . .I think you were born to blog. Some of the Febbies are setting up blogs to track their progress through FEBO. You could do one for Daily Writing Practice. :~)
Maybe I should try to blog more than once in a blue moon as Daily Writing practice. Although, I'm not sure how much writing time I can add to my writing time.
Loved the thoughts Nancy!
Nancy's goals sound much more do-able than mine. I've wondered if I've bitten off more than I can chew. I think daily writing is good discipline--hence my blogs. And at the risk of sounding repetitious, I LOVE FEBO!!
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