When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.So it looks like we have 27 people taking the Betsy Lerner 30 day challenge. I don’t know about you, but I’m PUMPED. Here’s what happened to me setting out on this “journey.” I got up early to get some editing done. The whole time I kept telling myself to do my writing. Take the half hour. And then I did it. I literally looked at my watch and started. The first fifteen minutes were brutal. The second fifteen flew by. It was amazing. I had to stop because of “work.” But I’m feeling it.
What was your Day #1 like?
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Betsy Lerner 
Day one, page one. After so many stanzas (and emails, medical records, and endless fucking texts), I have forgotten how to write in paragraphs.
I spent my 30 minutes picking at my WIP. I call it The Scab. Pick, pick, pick. In the end I had something better than it was when I started, so there’s that.
Honest: I totally forgot. Tomorrow: my Day 1
😦
Well, see, here’s the thing. I broke my wrist in two places and I have a major contraption in there, and it’s really quite gruesome. BUT … I am starting TOMORROW. I went to the surgeon today to get his okay. The keyboard work is difficile, but I AM GOING TO DO IT. Thank you, Betsy, so very much for this challenge, camaraderie, joy, and, yeah, the pain. I will update tomorrow when I’ve done the 30 because I need to be accountable.
Jody, could you maybe try voice recording at least some of the words instead of typing them all? I can’t really do it efficiently myself, but it really suits some people. When I had an injured finger, I found I could have the voice recorder going, speak SOME of the words and type some (especially type the punctuation, it’s a bit weird to speak it), and at least I got something done without much stress on the injury.
Takes some getting used to, but the voice recorders are pretty good these days — your computer probably has one that works well enough.
Thank you. I tried to set up voice dictation but I got waylaid by the tech challenges, and there were so many other challenges (tying my shoes! eating food!) and I couldn’t face anything more. I’m close to breakthrough point with the wrist, I think, …. g-d willing.
28!!! Don’t forget me. I am on fire. For thirty minutes.
Today was a great start. Almost finished my blog post for next week! If I keep this up, I’ll be able to take some vacation time next year. 😉
Walked the dog and plotted a scene, talking out oud. Came back and typed it up. It was better on the dog walk but I can edit it better later.
I scrawled some chicken scratch in my notebook: an investment in better writing later this week?
I progressed about 7000 words further through the final draft of a nightmare that’s taken too long already. This added approximately zero words to the story, but at least those 7000 are now mostly in the right order. Progress is progress is progress, right?
Day 1 went fine. I have a project that I’m working on already. I likely would have stopped at an earlier stopping point, but I took the pledge.
Day 1 = brutal –> then great.
Brutal because I re-worked a paragraph. A paragraph. for 3 hours. So I beat the challenge 30 mins by a long shot, but I’m at it every day, anyway.
And then it was great b/c after I got the paragraph like I wanted, I, once again, broke free and wrote until I reached my daily word count.
Nothing yet today – cleaning house, but I will be at it again in about 2 hours.
The amount of time you put into your craft is inspiring Donna.
Thank you for that, Mike D!
Rough start to day 1. I read the post late at night (for me — that’s around 9pm or so), so I had to choose between a good night’s sleep or sitting in front of the computer. Then I had trouble logging on. I thought maybe I’d have to grab a pen and paper. The computer screen changed from the blue screen of death to the lovely screensaver photo of a Toucan and I was on my way. But I only wrote for 15 minutes, so I have to put in 45 tonight.
The main thing I can say about this is it’s exciting.
No punishment or make up. Do 30 tonight. It’s a weirdly interesting amount of time.
Ah, Day 1. Siri was my time keeper. Yes, it is a weird nugget of time! I like the discipline. Some stuff came out, mostly self-reflection. First day for me was more or less free writing since I’m not currently working on anything – shit I haven’t done that since graduate school, and I’ve always hated writing on cue. Let’s see where this goes…
IT WORKED! Funny, in all my years as a writer, I’ve tried many things, usually focused on the number of words or pages or popping Swedish fish in my mouth. Never the TIME. It helps that I’m midway through a project that I feel chuffed about, but, but, but, she sputtered. IT WORKED.
I put it off S long as possible and started writing at 11:25 PM. I was shocked when my phone alarm went off 30 minutes later. I haven’t written in months! Back at it today too. Avoiding the novel but started a short story with an idea I had been mulling over for a few weeks. How is this possible? I feel like my house just landed in Oz. Betsy, are you a good witch or a bad witch?!
Bad.
Good! Went to library for a change of scenery and found a seat by the window. Read a blog about raising the stakes which said to ask what your character feared the most. I wrote a scene about abandonment . Finally. After working on a novel for almost years I didn’t have one scene about actually being abandoned. 🤦🏻♀️
I’ve been on vacation, so I’ve been reading the second draft of my novel and making notes about what to add/change/etc. Thanks for the nudge to dive back in! (Oh, and I wrote a poem.)