I used to get so worried when I wasn’t writing every day. I had books in my head and ideas scribbled all over the place, but I was making no concentrated effort to organize these thoughts. After writing the third book in the Rona Shively series, Keeping the Faith, I realized that it was the waiting and hanging back that helped make the book into something that I am very proud to have written. If I had rushed through it, I never would have developed the story the way I needed to and I certainly wouldn’t have reached novel-length without pulling all of my hair out.
They say that slow and steady wins the race. I have to agree with that. I’ve never been a patient person and once I started writing, I learned quickly that if I am not patient, I will not accomplish what I want to accomplish. If I rush through writing a story, it won’t be any good. If I rush through doing updates to my web pages, I’ll forget something or make a big mistake somewhere along the way. If I rush through my interactions with others, I’ll miss some valuable piece of information or advice that I might need later on. So, writing and the business of writing has been teaching me patience, slowly, but surely.
What this means to me is that I see things happening much more clearly. When I do accomplish a goal, it is because I have taken all of the necessary steps to do so. I haven’t taken any shortcuts. And it seems like the more I back off of things and let them happen as they are supposed to, the more I accomplish. I’m very happy with the way things have been going and I know that even though it is taking me a while to get back into my writing groove, the day will come when I can sit at my keyboard and finish that fourth book in my mystery series. The day will come when I have the finished Women’s Self-Esteem book in my hands. I just need to make sure that I am letting things happen the way they should and not rushing to be finished.
For me, the last three years have been amazing in terms of my writing career. Although I’m not a bestseller…yet, I have met so many wonderful people and learned so much about myself and how my world works. My writing has improved over time and I find that I am giving myself more time to recharge in between projects than I did when I started on this journey. That is so unlike me. I’m still anxious to see what else I will learn, but the difference is that now I’m willing to take the time and let that knowledge make its way to me instead of hunting it down and clubbing it over the head.
How do you pace yourself and your writing? What lessons have you learned about writing patiently?
Until next time…
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