Wishing and ROWing

I haven't written a Wishcasting Wednesday post in a while.  I've been reading the questions each week and thinking about them, but with everything else I've been doing these past few months, I just couldn't manage to fit in doing the writing and blog visiting.  But this week Jamie asks, "What is your deepest wish?" And I really wanted to answer that today.  So I'm combining a wish with my ROW80 check-in and having it all, at least for today.

My Deepest Wish

I wish for a haven in my home, a beautiful, comfortable place to come to and be peaceful and meditative, to think and read and write and drink tea.  I wish for beautiful surroundings and cozy, comfortable spaces in my home and in my heart and in my head so that I have space and freedom to dream all the stories and think all the thoughts I want.  I wish for freedom to spend my time writing the stories and doing the things that make me feel good and whole and happy.  I really, really wish for a different life away from this cold, ugly office I come to every day, away from schedules other people make that don't let me do what I need to do when I want to do it.  I wish for beauty and grace and time for my important bits of life.

My Writing Life

On Sunday I met with my writer friends for our monthly, in-person support circle.  I talked about my dilemma--write or plan or both all at once?  We decided I was very busily digging myself a hole and filling it in as I went, complaining about the quality of the dirt and the weight of the shovel the entire time.  In other words, I was very busy getting in my own way.

Saying this out loud did not make me step out of my own way, though, at least not right at first.  I still had to fight with myself for another day or two before finally, yesterday, finding myself picking my story notebook up again and getting back to work.  Because I have recognized that I don't do well with moving the story forward if I don't have something of an idea of what needs to be happening in a scene, I'm going to continue with the planning.  I'm also going to get back to writing.  I really want to be adding to the story, and right now that doesn't seem to be causing problems with the planning, so I'm going to continue on with my writing/planning mix.

Will I reach 65K by next Thursday?  I don't know.  I might, if I can get a firmer grasp of what needs to happen after this scene I'm writing.  It is still well within the realm of possibility, so I'm not counting myself out yet.  I also won't be terribly sad if I don't quite make it, because I feel like I'm still getting a lot done with this story.  I am learning to allow myself to count the planning as part of actually working on the book, and that changes things quite a lot.  I am progressing, both in the story and in my writing life.  I'd call this round a win.