Since I hopped on board for A Round of Words in 80 Days late for this round, I gave myself a pretty simple goal…and have roundly been doing a terrible job of keeping up with it. Last week, I said I wanted to at least be up to five pages by this point; I’ve just started page number 3. Thankfully, I have until the 23rd to complete the first draft of a short story, so in that respect, the goal is still pretty reachable. Let’s see how I feel in five days and I’m still only added a few more pages.
Part of this is all the stuff that’s been going on lately; now that it’s settling down, I can focus again, but, unfortunately, I feel like I’ve lost my drive for the story. It probably doesn’t hurt that the two people who inspired it and are my conspirators in the project have not been around much lately: London is working at a different store now, and Monika is in Atlanta for training. And I guess I’m just not feeling the creepy stalker vibe right now (probably a good thing, really), so I feel like I rushed through that part of the story to get the plot moving along quicker. But I suppose that’s why it’s a rough draft, and improvement will come later.
In other news, the novel is coming along very well, I’m struggling to find a good way to work more short-story writing into my day, June’s numbers are kind of lagging, and I’ve been considering doing a post dedicated to my cats, because they’re awesome, but then I would be One of Those People. It’s a big decision to have to make.
L.S. Engler 
Oh be one of THOSE PEOPLE, please. Cats are motivation too!! I fully intend on doing a post as my dog at some point.
Well, with encouragement like that, I might have to now! Considering I was just talking to someone about getting them harnesses so I can take them out on walks in the yard, yeah, I already am one of those people. They really are great inspiration, and I’d totally love to see your dog post, too.
If you’re not in the right place to tackle your story, you can always mix things up by working on other stuff like, character bios/interviews, plot structure outlines, etc. Or take a bit character and write an unrelated scene where they go to the store for milk and get in an argument or something. Then store that in a scrap file somewhere. You can also write short poems too. Pick a theme that’s relevant (or not) to your story. Just some quick exercises that scratch the writing itch and also get the wheels turning. Maybe something will spark and get you working on the main story next. Hope this helps, good luck.
I love the idea of just throwing out a snapshot of the character doing something random like an argument or a grocery run to just sort of get the feeling of that character back! I’ll definitely have to give that a try. I remember doing exercises like that in college, but I’ve sort of forgotten about them, so thanks for the reminder.
Right now, it seems like a bit of a problem of trying to find the time for exercises like that, but we shall see. : )