I have been back to participating in ROW80 again. I’ve been doing my updates on the Facebook page because for a while I had too much going on, and blog posts just weren’t happening. I’m going to try out doing very short updates at least once a week and see how that goes. No promises. Posting might be haphazard.

My goals for this round have been centered on getting back to enjoying writing and building a steadier practice. I wrote about how that’s going yesterday. For a brief recap, I think I’m moving in a good direction.

As for enjoying the writing, I’m starting to again. One of the things I am having to wrangle is my tendency to want to control everything, have everything just so, know exactly how things are going to be and that they’re going to be just right like I need them to be. This really doesn’t work in writing stories. And then I start to get ahead of myself and lose track of where I really am and what I need to be doing right now.

So I am practicing having only a shadowy idea of my ending and writing just a little bit at a time and letting go of the idea of knowing exactly how things are going to wrap up and how exactly to get things to that place. I’m writing every day and hoping things will open up as I need them and get me to a good ending. And reminding myself that I can add and change things in revisions. So far, new ideas keep coming, the story is moving forward, and I’m liking it. I think this is progress.

That’s my update. I am also practicing not trying to explain every little thing either to myself or to anyone else who might be listening. So I’m letting this be just enough.