Writer's Challenge

After One Week

JAN BROGAN _ I have to admit, I've had better weeks in terms of pages. But up until Wednesday, I did sit down and work for a solid two hours before I checked my email. Much of that work was research, but some of it was writing down salient points of that research and playing with characters and plot lines.

Wednesday was a total loss, and Thursday and Friday were a bit better. I thought I would make up for lost time on Saturday, but no such luck. I expect today to be my kick-in-the-pants day.

Still, the discipline focused me more on writing than I would be otherwise, and I feel myself getting closer to a new, productive writing schedule.

For those readers just tuning it - the writing challenge is this: Write two pages before checking your email in the morning - if you write in the morning. If you are a late afternoon-evening person, you can check your email in the morning, but not before you start writing. And most important, you can't stop and check email or go on-line (unless its directly related to research for your book) once you start.

It's not too late to sign up now. The challenge has three more weeks left.

How did everyone else do?

Writers Challenge Week Three

JAN: The challenge is getting harder for me for good reasons. Now I've really finished my draft and have it out with a trusted reader - which means not much to do besides a little tinkering here and there while I wait for critique. But I've been writing a lesson plan and exercises for a workshop I'm teaching in Providence, and I've started an essay. The goal, I've decided, is to keep writing no matter what.

The weird thing is this: I always expect to feel absolute joy when I write "The End," but oddly, I don't. I feel a fleeting sense of accomplishment, but it's followed by a weird sense of emptiness and loss.

All those things I've wanted to do and looked so inviting when I was still working on the novel, suddenly seem drab now that I have the time do them. I miss my characters and that quirky little world they inhabit.

Lucky I'm going on vacation Monday -- yes, I'll be bringing my IPAD and keyboard accessory with me and hoping that PAGES Ap works and translates back to my Word files when I get back home. I'll do my best to write 45 minutes before checking my email, but frankly I think the other temptations -- swimming, tennis and pretty rum drinks -- may be my undoing.

Rosemary will be filling in for me next Sunday, but I'll try to check into the comments page late on Sunday and let you all know just how disciplined I may or may not be when tempted by the Caribbean blue ocean.

So tell me everyone -- how was your week THREE? And aside from email and the Internet -- what's your toughest distraction?