Beginning, again.

lizshine74by lizshine74

In On writing, Uncategorized.

One has to be comfortable with beginning again to stick with writing.

I am beginning summer again, that time when hours of time for writing open, which, paradoxically, can slow down my writing.

Sometimes, I begin new projects just to keep going, because I’m stuck in what I’m working on.

Sometimes, I have to begin a new draft in a blank document in order to honor the story over the precious phrases I’ve collected along the way.

I am beginning being single again, and when I say single, I mean my child is stepping out on his own life journey and I’ve got no one whose care I can use for an excuse for not writing.

I truth, I think one of the best choices I made as a parent must have been to begin really writing again with NaNoWriMo in 2005 (my son was 10). In ten years I had written in fits and starts, sometimes I would go months without writing at all. But that November I wrote a novel, well 25,000 words of a novel. Shortly after that I joined a writer’s group and started researching into MFA programs.

I have been working at writing pretty steady since then. I earned my MFA. I’m still in a writer’s group. As my son goes off to CA to pursue his dream to produce music, I smile that maybe my persistence somewhere along the way inspired him.

And why quit now? When I can really begin again.

Summer goal: Write every day. At least 700 wc.

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Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

lizshine74

lizshine74

Liz Shine teaches high school English, writes, edits, and coaches other writers from her home in Olympia, WA. When she begins to feel overwhelmed by it all, she simply looks up at Mount Rainier in the distance and gets back to work. If that fails, she heads to the ocean. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press. Her Substack Make Time is her gift to writers, like her, trying to magic time in this crazy, busy world. All of those posts are cross-posted on the blog here. You can see more of her writing at lizshine.com and find her on Instagram {@lizshine.writer} cooking, traveling, and in other ways seeking moments of awe. She has been an active participant in communities of writers since the early 1990s. She’s learned that two things feel truly purpose-driven in life: writing and coaching other writers. In the in between (because one cannot be driving for a purpose every moment), she enjoys looking for wonder and connection. She is a lifelong yoga student, an enthusiastic walker along streets and trails, and an amateur gardener and vegetarian cook. She lives in Olympia, WA. She believes in the power of practice and has been practicing writing since some time in the early 90s when she became an adult in the rain-soaked city of Aberdeen. Writing began with journaling, as a way to understand a confusing, sometimes violent coming-of-age. She writes mostly fiction, some nonfiction, and poetry, and holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers Workshop. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.