Linda Nelson

I would like to start off by apologizing to those of you who have been following my blog. My writing has been off for the past month or so, and the words have been truly struggling to find the page. I only stopped posting in hopes that I could regroup and start again with the writing process.

It is a success!

Our last month’s challenge for my RWA Chapter was to learn how to eat Elephant. They are such large animals and can be compared to our works in progress. When you look at that first word posted to your work in progress, it can be a little intimidating.

Do I have to write all that?

In order to eat an elephant one must do it in small bites, one bite at a time. And chew, sometimes the meat/writing can be difficult, so the more you chew, the easier it becomes to digest.

I shrunk my bites down to bits, writing bits of 300 words a night. Tonight was a terrific night as I hit 500 words, not counting this blog post. If I do the math, the word count will come out to 2100 words a week. Which is 8400 words a month. If I were to do this for, say four months, I will be at 33600 words. In turn, if this were to cause some truly fantastic writing days I might possible be done in about 6 months with the first draft.

All of this is to help me break through my writers block. So far it is working.

Have you ever tried to eat an elephant?

How long did it take you?

I would love to hear.

After suffering for the past few months of writer’s block, I believe I have begun to break through and piece words together again. It was sort of like having writing laryngitis, if there is such a thing.

Twice this week I was able to add over 300 words to the work in progress. It is a start.

Our challenge this month for my local RWA Chapter is small bites.

“How do you eat an elephant?”

“One bite at a time.”

That’s what I have been working on this week, though my blog posts seem to suffer from putting my bites on my wip instead of the scheduled post. But I’m here now and that is all that counts, right?

So, for my ROW80 check in for today I can report that since Wednesday I was able to add 1k words to the work in progress. Not too shabby for someone suffering from Writer’s Laryngitis.

I remember many years ago, when I had come down with a very bad case of Laryngitis while I was working for Ames Department Store as a customer service representative. Part of my job was to answer the phone. How funny is that when you have laryngitis? I had to have someone else take my place that day. Customers thought they had reverse prank calls. It was funny. You had to be there, I guess.

I haven’t had laryngitis that bad in years. It was kind of weird too. I didn’t have a cold, or a sore throat. Though, it was very cold that winter. It may have been due to the dry air.

How is your writing going?

Have you been having trouble with Writer’s Laryngitis? I like the sound of that better than Writer’s Block, don’t you?

Stop by and share how your week is going. I’d love to hear.