At this point, I am trying to take in as much information about the craft of writing as I can. Opposing view points are OK, and there are a lot of them. I am always willing to listen to what people have to say regarding techniques, style, what is in, what is out. Use this word, don't use that. It is endless. But I have also always known in my heart that ultimately, I am the author, the self styled goddess of the world I am creating. I am going to do what works for me, the characters, and the story. It is all about integrating all that knowledge into a new whole.
If I hear things more than once from opposing sources, then I am more likely to pay attention to that piece of information. Take the daily word count for example. I have heard that from many different people. I finally decided that I have to do it. It's that simple. But knowing my schedule and myself, I also know that a daily word count could set me up for unbelievable frustration. So I modified things a bit. The goal for 2012 is 5000 words per week. This way, if I have an off day, or I have to run The Girl to the orthodontist in the morning, I don't spend the rest of the day castigating myself that I didn't hit my goal. I can just pick up where I left off the next day.
This lead to the next change I made recently. The idea that I needed a place to write where I wouldn't be disturbed has been floating around in my head for a while. I love to write at the dining room table, but there is too much going on in the center of the house, too many "Mom's" and "Honeys" and cats walking across the keyboard. I learned that Stephen King wrote Carrie sitting in the laundry room of a double wide trailer with the typewriter on his lap. All he needed was a place where he could shut the door. So I am writing this post in our unfinished basement facing a shelving unit filled with the flotsam and jetsam of our lives. The computer is on a folding table, I am sitting on an exercise ball (good for the abs) listening to the furnace run. The cat boxes are down here, so it smells like cat pee but it is quiet and I can completely focus on what I am doing. I've gotten more writing done down here in the last couple days than I have in months.
There are a lot of other pieces of advice that I would like to implement. But I have also learned that if you try to change too much at once, nothing changes. So I am slowly ramping up. The weekly word goal right now, then more reading, then working on submitting to publishers. I will slowly build up to a writers life. It won't happen over night, but it will happen eventually. And really, that is all that matters.
