So, yesterday was a bit of a struggle, for some reason I couldn’t get my head out of my ass to do the writing. It was just a strange feeling of just not wanting to do the work. I liked a video I watched yesterday though, which was just sort of an artists take on the whole BIC (butt in chair) concept. Which basically says, just sit your ass down and do the writing. I liked especially the last few minutes speech, where she says basically, “Don’t be afraid, Don’t be daunted, Just do your job.” and really if inspiration shows up then great, roll with it, otherwise just do your part. Which is of course, to sit down and write. And, that’s really all you have to do. If your just sitting there, and typing at the keyboard, they your making progress … your moving the yard markers, and getting closer to the goal. I don’t know how many ways you can say it. Just do the work. Sometimes, it won’t feel inspired, and sometimes it will. Yes, this is an emotional experience, but it won’t always be this way. Sometimes, you just have to do the nuts and bolts of moving characters down roads, through hallways … opening and closing doors. And that’s ok, because if you don’t go through those motions, then you never get to the good stuff. You never get to the stuff where it feels like your touched by in the inspired hand of [insert whatever deity is appropriate here] to make your work feel immortal. And that’s where we are going, so do the grunt work. Do the heavy lifting … do the manual labour, that for some reason you thought you would never have to do again, just because your playing the role of artist. Artists aren’t always going through the gates of heaven as they work. Sometimes, they’re just digging ditches, and sometimes they’re just painting barns, but we need ditches, and barns look so much nicer when they’re painted. So, do that, and anything else it takes to feel those elusive moments of inspiration. Because, oh do we love those moments, when words drip from our brain directly into our keyboards, and fly their way through the digital winds into the eyes and minds of our readers. That’s the high we’re looking for, and that’s what we’ll find, if we dig the ditches, and paint the barns. And, there’s of course nothing to say we can’t paint polka dots and sunsets on the barns or dig really super fancy ditches that don’t necessarily follow straight lines, but just flow any which direction we want them to. Hell, we can dig ditches in figure 8s and figure 9s and whatever figure we want. That’s the beauty of it all. We can twist things around, and make them crazy and colorful and emotionally rich. Remember, your favorite phrase about what you like to read when you get around to reading. And that is, you like a lot of fiction in your fiction. Well, I would think the same is likely true about your writing. I’m sure, that even there you like a lot of fiction in your fiction. So get to it. Just relax. Take a breath, and paint that little 1 inch by 1 inch picture you see by throwing a few words up on the screen. It’s not that scary, and there’s no reason to run away from it. You don’t run away from these journals, so there’s no reason to run away from your novels. Go and do the work. Show up. BIC. Paint the ditch. Dig the barn. (see what I did there … I had some fun with it) or vice versa whatever suits your fancy. I’m thinking, I do need to write something sometime I think, where I can write crazy stuff like this into a novel. I need someone, a character, that’s just a little nuts. Someone, kind of like patient zero was, when your writing the dialogue that just seems crazy far out there. And you also need a wise cracking kind of character as well. I like have the different personalities thrown in there. Especially, if they come from a place that is inside of me. One of my inner voices, that never get a chance to see the real world very often. That is something, I think, that is missing so far. I need to find more of me to put into some of the characters. That would make writing more fun for sure. Oh yea, and another thing that happened yesterday, I did get the outboard engine running … there was a ton of smoke, and it was too dark to see what was going on, but I did finally get the thing running … YAY ME!

TIGERBLOOD: so so DAILYMOOD: ok LOCATION: home office WORDSWRITTEN: 1800 PUSHUPS: 2:15 plank TODO: write, get outboard engine running TV: true blood BOOK: none GAME: none EXERCISE: none WEIGHT: 168 BREAKFAST: bacon & eggs LUNCH: big ass salad DINNER: salmon fish patties, sweet potatoes SNACKS: orange, apple, walnuts ALCOHOL: none BEDTIME: 11:30 AWAKE: 6:30