DAY 14. If you’re reading this you’re half way there. Congratulations. I’ll come clean: I didn’t write today. I’m not going to make excuses because there are no reasons good enough not to write for just 30 minutes. I was also going to have a yogurt for lunch but somehow found myself demolishing a bagel with tuna fish. The whole idea behind the 30/30 was continuity whether you had a good day or a bad day or a blah day. It was about no excuses and balls to the wall. Sorry to have let you down,

What have you learned in 14 days?

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Day 13. Day 13. Day 13. It’s time to do a little dance if you’ve been writing every day. I had a bonafide good day, banged out three pages. Of course, the writing gods could strike me down tomorrow. That’s the beauty of writing. It doesn’t matter if you’re despairing or feeling transcendent, it will kick you in the head. It’s like a guy who takes your number and never calls.

What did you write today?

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Wrote two more lackluster paragraphs. I may have napped in between them. It’s always special when your own work puts you to sleep. I wish I could say that I’m filled with confidence and positivity. On the contrary this project feels like pure folly today. Just more wanking in the wank yard. You know what I really hate? When writers are interviewed and they gas on about their process. You can tell Terry Gross that your process is the Betsy Lerner Thirty Minute Mental Hospital Method. By the way, it’s DAY 12, bitches!!!

What makes you crazy?

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Day 11 was yesterday but yours truly was a Plus 1 at a shmancy dinner for the world’s pre-eminent Romanian writer where many glasses of red wine were imbibed along with a pork chop the size of Texas. Did I do my dirty thirty in the afternoon. The fuck I did. Was it pretty? No. Was it interesting? Not really. It was a meat and potatoes two paragraphs that need to be rewritten but decent in that it forwarded my plotless plot.

Are you still with me?

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Friday DAY 10. Double digits. I had a good day. Three new paragraphs. I finally got out of the cul-de-sac I’ve been idling in for days. Got the car into first and got my characters in a new situation. The other remarkable thing about writing today for me was that I ate twenty Kit Kats the night before. Somehow, I was able to push through the self loathing and recrimination enough to type for thirty minutes. One small step for mankind.

What’s your weekend writing plan?

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DAY 9!!!!!!!!!!!! If you have missed a day or two or three, please come back!!! I can’t do it without you. This is the part where a butterfly does something in New England and there’s a tsunami in Japan. It’s where you overeat for three days and expect the scale to go down. It’s about cutting off your hair and becoming Keith Richards, or spending an entire paycheck on a pair of Pradas you can’t even walk in. It’s about exquisite belief, magical thinking, and a small knock at the door. I’m telling you this because I need to hear it myself: keep fucking writing.

Describe your best writing day.

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You know it’s DAY 8 because the sun is shining, your monitor’s humming, there are Wheat Thins shards in the bottom of the box and your brassiere is snug but not too snug. Yes, bitches, you’re writing. Can you feel the burn? Yes, I had a better day today. Self loathing in abeyance for a bit and a good simile can make my day. Keep going, keep going, keep going.

What’s your poison: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essay, villanelle, etc.

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DAY 7. If you are reading this it means you have planted your beautiful ass in a chair for thirty minutes for an entire week and committed for three more weeks. Your biceps must be looking fantastic. Your digits sleek. I’ll be honest I had another shit day. Not only did I barely produce a few sentences, I started to doubt the entire enterprise. I tend to go global, so don’t be alarmed. My mother used to say that I was all or nothing. I sort of feel that’s one of the few good things about me. Well, that’s the whole point of this fucking exercise: you get back on the horse the next day and see where the next thirty minutes takes you.

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DAY 6!!!! Full disclosure: I had a shitty thirty at the keyboard. I couldn’t get out of park. I corrected a few typos and wrote two paragraphs that I immediately deleted. I started to wonder what I was doing, insecurity flooded in the form of dry mouth, self flagellation, and lunch planning. The beauty of this money-back guaranteed 30 day program is that we have tomorrow to sit down and see what the fuck.

Good day? Bad day? Spill.

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If you are reading this, you’ve made it to DAY 5 of our 30 day 30 minute writing challenge. Amazing! If you’re just joining now,

jump in and jump start your writing. I don’t want to brag, but my 30 minutes flew by this morning from start to finish.

I’m not going to say I was on fire, but it was hot. Usually, when I sit down to write, I imagine I need a few hours if not more.

And that has been a big impediment. I do long for more time, but getting something done, producing a few new pages, connecting with a project that was heading for the crypt is really rejuvenating. Also, I apologize for being so positive and upbeat.

What is the first thing you remember writing? Mine was a diary, age 6, that chronicled the ways in which life was unfair.

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