I’ve started to wonder recently if the idea that a writer needs to seek out a quiet place to work is a personal fallacy. I’ve held it to be true for– well, nigh on forever at this point, but when I think back across the years it has rarely ever been true.

“I write best up at the cabin in Maine.”

We went up to my grandparents cabin in Maine every summer when I was a kid. For a month or two we’d spend time playing on the rocky seashore, fishing, and enjoying our break from ‘real life’. (Which included running water, telephones, but thankfully not electricity.)

We read books, wrote books, played boardgames with the assembled extended family and went garage sale-ing on the weekends. We reveled in all the things that there wasn’t time for at home and it was pure unadulterated bliss.

It’s true that I wrote the most (and the most freely) in Maine, but it was rarely ever alone. I had grand fun co-authoring stories with my brother as well as writing while a thousand other things were going on in the background. It could be just as true to say ‘I write best with family.’ Which makes me miss Maine and family something fierce… Someday I will find a job that gives me ample vacation time, or allows two month sabbaticals every few years. *sighs*

‘I write best alone in the quiet.”

Hah. I can’t actually think of a time where this was ever true. Even now, having moved my computer into my own little office area, I’m pausing to have conversations with my husband, pet the dogs and listen to dissertations on ‘why monkeys suck’ from the cat (who is annoyed I am petting the dogs and not her). This is not quiet, nor alone in any stretch of the definition. Add to that the fact that my most prolific writing for NaNoWriMo came in the form of weekly Write-ins and I really can’t pin down when I started thinking this was a personal truth.

Now I’ll admit to the same cat-waxing tendencies as anyone else. Looking for the perfect secluded place to write, away from distractions and temptation is an acceptable method of avoiding putting words on a page… but for me, it might be worse if I actually found what I was looking for.

So maybe it’s time I redefined solitude. *skritches the Fluffy!Puppy head* Maybe it has more to do with surrounding myself with things that encourage writing (like NaNo or siblings) rather than trying to reduce the things that don’t (the internet in general). While I love spending my time chasing internet squirrels (Stumble, Farmville, Etsy), there are a thousand things offline that also ‘need doing’ so I can’t every really escape the chance for procrastination.

But darned if I’m not going to miss Maine anyways. *sighs*

I’ve started playing in the Novel_in_90 LiveJournal community again, thanks to a post on Friday asking when the next round was starting. (There aren’t rounds, as such, it’s a ‘jump in at any time’ setup in which you are aiming for a personal 90 day run.)

I’d been looking at ways to get back into the daily writing rhythms and the community slipped my mind for some reason. Amusingly I had even started fiddling without outlines for this year’s NaNoWriMo and was chomping at the bit to get started. I hadn’t really forgotten about the comm, but it hadn’t been on the top of my mind either. It’s one of those ‘sounds like a good idea!’ that you routinely forget exists until you stumble over it again.

The comm has been relatively quiet recently, so I’m taking the opportunity to psych myself up and be at least mildly entertaining to the other folks who are coming to play. I’ve made the 750 word count two days in a row and if I can just keep that momentum rolling through the work week, I should be set. I’m thinking of devoting time in the morning to writing, which would be a nice change from my routine of mindlessly surfing the interwebs. (Chasing Internet Squirrels, FTW!)

So if anyone else is interested, come on by Novel_in_90 and join in the fun!

I have a rather impressive pile of works-in-progress at the moment. Actually, if you count the daily snippits and the story prompts in the totals… I have a rather terrifying pile of works-in-progress.

But, as has been said by writers much smarter than I: “Ideas are not the hard part of writing.”

So, my self-assignment for this week is to pick a WIP to work on starting next Saturday. (I’d start tomorrow, but work is busy being work and I doubt I’m going to want to do much more than nap when I get home.)

I’m going to be reading through all of the novels-in-progress as well as the snippits and story prompts– hopefully something will catch my Muses.

But for right now, I’m going to go watch Lost…

I’ve always wanted to tell stories for a living.

Of course I’ve wanted to other things as well (breed riding cows, build robot dragons, rule a computer kingdom as a Sysadmin, write computer games, etc.)

But wanting is not doing.

I feel like inscribing that in giant letters over my desks at home and at work so that I have to stare at it day in and day out.

Some childhood dreams are meant to die when reality and adulthood start gnawing away at life –I’ll miss you giant robot dragons!– but not all of them. I’ve spent my quasi-adulthood in nothing more than regretful daydreams about how much fun it would be to be the person I thought I would grow into.

For every grand scheme and master plan I whip up to make those dreams into reality, I can think of a thousand good reasons not to try. All of my objections are perfectly logical and rationally sound, but in the end, what are these negative ‘but if’s’ but stories?

It’s time to change my verb.

Time to get moving again.

Whenever I stop reading, I stop writing. It’s odd how wound together the two actions are– you’d think reading would cancel out writing. After all, if I’m writing for my own enjoyment wouldn’t reading someone else’s stories fill that niche? What does it matter if the stories that are unfolding before me are mind or not?

Apparently my Muses are picky sorts. For ever story I read and enjoy, those little voices in the back of my head keep insisting they could do it better. (Whether they could or not is a hotly debated topic, but I’ve learned never to argue with them when they get riled up). So it looks like reading is definitely back on my plate as ‘something I should be doing more of’, I just have to start finding the time…

Tomorrow is always a new day.