It is easy to fall behind. You set goals, make plans, create schedules, and the world intervenes. The result is you flounder, miss the mark, call yourself a failure. Your grand plans lie in ruins. Thinking in black and white terms, in happiness or disappointments, can encourage you to forsake your dreams. Thankfully, colors have countless shades, and we can measure success in degrees.

Life ebbs and flows. A writing session may see words appear on the screen without effort. At the next scheduled session, your fingers can’t communicate with the keyboard. Consistency is the key to helping you create within the day’s constraints. If you do your best, if you compose what you can, then you are a winner.

How many words will you write today?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Carving out time for creative endeavors is a challenge. Work, family responsibilities, mundane chores, and an endless string of must-do items conspire to keep us from our goal. I have decided on a new tactic and am attempting block scheduling. It is a learning process for both me and the household. I am discovering it helps if I can disappear.

Once upon a time, my go-to escape plan was a trip to the coffee shop. Sadly, that is no longer an option. I have lost my desire to brave the outdoor patio now that the weather is cold and damp.  A locked bedroom door is a second, albeit less workable choice for an untrained family. Noses sniff, puffing at the crack at the door’s bottom as they try to see what you are doing. Grubby little paws claw the door.

Noise-canceling headphones help muffle the constant crying, sobbing, and begging on the barriers’ opposite side. If you are stalwart, they will eventually give up. That is when your pets get in on the act and launch their assault. I surrender, gather my supplies, and prepare to write in my car.

How do you block out creative time?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

I am home alone when I hear a strange noise downstairs. It is a break-in, the neighbor’s crafty cat. No, I see three black-suited men who I noticed following me this week. Wait, maybe it is a homicidal maniac with a knife. In reality, it is the dishwasher beginning its pre-programmed cycle. The next morning, as I shower, I overhear two peasants discussing their plans to depose the evil king. On my drive to work, a voice concocts an elaborate story. The narrator describes the setting, while the characters inform me of the challenges they will face.

No, I am not crazy. Yes, I hear and speak to voices. They fuel my active imagination and provide details for the stories I write. I depend on them, using them as an essential part of my writing process. They are integral to discovering my character’s motivations and desires. They direct the plot, and they challenge me when I want them to do something out of character. I use these internal conversations to get into their head.

When I sit down to write, the words flow. Telling their stories makes them happy. There is one voice I avoid. I know it almost before it speaks, the voice of self-doubt. I smash it with my boot, squash it like a bug.

Do your characters speak to you?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

I don’t recall my first attempt at written goals. I remember having detailed lists when I was in high school. The habit followed me to college. Over time, I refined the format and changed my process to better suit my needs. It has become part of my DNA. Like Howe, I notice when I write my goals and commit to completing them, they get finished. Magical, right? I prefer to think of it as a hyper-focus.

It may be a well-established habit, but it requires dedication. Today, I find myself behind on a deadline. The date has passed, and I cannot remove it from the list. I have good news. The task is more than half done, and I have reached my anger point.

Anger is a great motivator, and I am more determined to finish. Knowing myself, I suspect a few late nights and a big push in my future. I also set a new completion date. If I succeed, I will complete the project one week later than initially planned.

How do you cope with missed deadlines?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

I keep a daily schedule listing the items I want to accomplish. It is my Sunday morning ritual. I wake early, and while the household is still quiet, I sit with my coffee and my planner and create a detailed strategy for completing the coming week’s projects. I make entries from Monday to Sunday, dutifully blocking an hour each day to write.

And life laughs at me. Phone calls, text messages, hunger pains, dirty laundry, tv programs, and a thousand other diversions conspire to distract me from my best intentions. They are tests, each designed to challenge my commitment to my stated goal.

I find myself engaged in the excuse removal business. I schedule laundry time, plan meals, silence the phone, and other notifications. When my scheduled writing time arrives and laundry beckons, I refer the request to its scheduled time and push the beast out the door. Leaning hard on the door, I block the other diversions and attempt to summon my muse by writing.

Is your daily writing time scheduled?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Often the most difficult tasks to achieve, masquerade as the easiest. As we struggle to succeed, it is easy to compare our skills and our progress with everyone else. We listen to advice from teachers, family members, and friends without realizing their advice represents their choices. If we neglect to choose our path in favor of a consensus, we lose ourselves. Doubts cloud our judgment, and we succumb to our insecurities and fears.

Honoring our authentic selves means determining what matters most. We must place less reliance on the opinions of those around us since trying to satisfy everyone is a guaranteed way to please no one and to make ourselves miserable in the process. Regardless of our choices, we will never gain everyone’s approval. Releasing the need to subjugate our genuine desires is an important step towards discovering who we really are.

How will you be true to yourself today?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

The invasion began when I turned the calendar to “October.” Orange lights appeared along the eaves of the house across the road, followed by a gigantic glow-in-the-dark purple spider. Down the street, zombies began clawing their way from the depths of a front lawn. Another home has become the nightly haunting of a huge, ephemeral, floating phantom lady, her robes flapping in the breeze as she collects falling red leaves in her tangled hair. The entire neighborhood has become overrun with skeletons, dried cornstalk sheaves, and glowing orange jack-o’-lanterns.

Then there are the witches. In the cul-de-sac, three shadowy sisters stir a bubbling brew in an ebony caldron. Next door to the zombies, in a horrific accident, a novice crash-landed into the doorway.  Her pointy shoes, green and black stockings, and broken broom create a gapers block, and the neighborhood walkers point and giggle. An old crone terrorizes the corner, harassing the ghost girl and the unaware.

Their stories run amok, and I chase them, trying to record as much detail as possible, preserving the magic in my notebook that is already bursting at the seams. There is a natural urge to pack, store, and prepare for the long winter nights. When the snow flies and the winds howl, I will sit next to my fire and write.

What is your favorite aspect of Halloween?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

I love poetry. There is nothing I enjoy more than reading a sonnet aloud, preferably while walking around the house. Some words are whisperers begging for a voice, while others emanate from the depths of our souls. I stand in awe of the poet’s skill to evoke a symphony of emotions. I can’t write anything worthy of inflecting on my worst enemy. The rigorous structures of syntax, couplets, and quatrains stifle my ability to compose.

However, I find the constraints of flash fiction a challenge that begs me to step up to the plate. Telling a satisfying story with a beginning, middle, and end while adhering to a strict word count of 100, 250, or 500 words requires some tricks. Selecting words which capable of doing double duty help convey a uniform message through the piece. Do you want to amaze, alarm, or surprise your audience? Precise word choice can establish or ruin the mood. While the final sentence is technically the story’s completion, it should also encourage the reader to consider implications beyond the writing.

At first, Marge’s comparison of poetry to flash fiction intrigued me, but as I analyzed the two, similarities emerged. Prose poetry often has either technical or literary qualities of a poem. But defining differences with flash fiction are less clear, and the forms seem to intertwine. Perhaps, I allow my favorite poets to influence my writing, and creating within stringent limits hones my craft further. It provides a wonderful way to practice for my novels.

Do you prefer long or short-form writing?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

I am struggling with my first draft. I read reports of authors churning out 5,000 or 10,000 words per day, and I wonder if a radioactive spider bit them. Perhaps they mastered time travel, allowing them the luxury of writing, and deleting sentences multiple times. Or maybe they’ve found supercharged coffee beans. I need them for my coffeepot.

Studying successful authors, searching for clues, I discovered a plethora of tricks used to create what some describe as a “vomit” draft. Some locked themselves in hotel rooms, or garden sheds, or composed in their cars. Others, like Victor Hugo, Ernest Hemingway, and even Benjamin Franklin, wrote in the nude, with the idea that without clothes, there was nothing else they could do but write.

Writers have odd habits. We talk to ourselves and our characters, we frequent baby name websites, and please refrain from looking at our search history. I guarantee you don’t want to know. We eavesdrop on conversations, then stare into space, oblivious of our surroundings. I ask Alexa for synonyms or how to spell a simple word that refuses to appear on my screen. I am not above doing anything that will facilitate getting more words written faster.

What are your secret writing hacks?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

I enjoy being busy, and it has gotten me into trouble. Over-committed, overwhelmed, overworked, and managing an overflowing schedule leads to being overstressed. I am no slacker. I climb mountains to honor my commitments. People rely on me, and I wouldn’t change it. But, when I say, “I can’t,” I’m not exaggerating. Being overextended teaches many lessons.

We’ve read those posts. You know the “10 Ways to Productivity” lists. A few tips sometimes work, while others are a complete failure for me. One helpful suggestion I hear often is an admonition to clear your desk. While the experts extoll the virtues of an empty workspace, it drives me crazy. For me, a pristine desktop signals a lack of activity and performance. No inspiration, no ideas, no novel connections to make because of a notebook, open to a random page on which I slop my coffee. I dab the mess, a phrase comes into sharp focus, and voilà, I have an interesting topic to explore.

That wouldn’t happen with a tidy desk. I might still be staring at a clean counter, as I listen to my deadline swoosh past me. Instead, I reach my goal in half the allotted time, freeing me to move to another task. With a big win notched in my belt, I have positive momentum I fly, completing more jobs than I imagined was possible.

How do you get things done?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer