Friday, September 21, 2012

Mighty Mo ...

Not the US battleship Missouri, but momentum.

How do I keep this writing thing moving forward?

I thought of this at work while trying to move a line of about 20 refrigerators. They were all sitting in a neat row on their little skids. They looked good and had passed testing and inspection. The next stops were packaging and shipping. But, they had missed their mark. They had stopped several inches short of a sensor that would start a motor to roll the line and send them on their way.

I thought of Buck, the sled dog in Call of the Wild. In a pulling contest, his driver called for him to lean to the left, then the right, to break an overloaded sled loose and get it moving.

That was all I had to do -- just get those things moving, just a few inches. So I leaned into them with my arms braced and tried to budge them just a little farther. If I had reached them earlier I might have been able to start pushing while they were still rolling, even slightly, just enough to continued making forward motion.

Sometimes I feel like my writing is at a stand still and that I have to do something to just get it moving, or keep it moving no matter how slowly.

For me that boils down to continuing to write, inspite of work, the farm, 4-H, band, Cub Scouts, Little League and all else going on. For instance, I am trying to work on more than one project at a time -- a novel, a novella, and had some ideas for more devotionals that I hope to sell. Hanging out with other writers inspires me.

I just have to keep inching forward.

3 comments:

  1. Write a little everyday! Hard to do and easy to say. :-) Good post!

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  2. Great column. And I happen to have read this after a later post where Rick lays down the gauntlet to write a thousand words a day (twice my personal goal).

    Jeff

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  3. Rooting for you, Ann, and taking your words to heart.

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