In January I participated in a forum writing contest called Weekend Warrior. It lasted five weeks. Each Saturday morning three prompts were posted. Participants had until Sunday evening to write a story of 750 words or less. It was a good experience, but it was very hard on me. I had to quit after the third week because I’d completely drained my emotional reserves while simultaneously neglecting a bunch of house/family stuff that I felt guilty about. The scheduling for the contest was all wrong for me. If I spend Saturday feverishly writing, I end up growling at the kids who are home all day. The growling was even worse because we were all stuck inside due to icy weather. Saturday is also the day that I usually focus on getting the house clean, so my house clutter intensified over the course of three weeks. Then there was the fact that my stories were being scored against other stories. Week after week I had to face the fact that I’m not as good at this as I want to be. I wanted to wow people and I never did. In the end I had to stop. I had to rebalance myself and realize that mid-January was probably not the best time to try to stretch myself in this particular way.
And yet it really felt good to lose myself in the writing. It was fun to have a scheduled time to turn my brain over to story and plot percolation. And the deadline gave me the impetus to truly schedule the time. In theory I’m trying to make Thursday mornings my writing time, but in practice I frequently fill the time with other things instead. Next week will be completely absorbed by getting Scrapyard finished. Then there will be LTUE. Maybe after that I can settle the schedule back down. I just counted and I have five finished stories waiting for revision. I also have two projects partially drafted. It would be nice to get some of these out where they have a chance at publication. If I had not participated in the Weekend Warrior contest 4 of those stories would not exist.