VIVA LE RESISTANCE! Er, PERSISTENCE! Yeah, that's right..

So a group of us are starting a Fast Draft session starting... Now! Jenny Hansen started the ball rolling and I am 100% committed to this thing. Just as soon as I can fight through all this underhanded sneaky resistance. I am home sick, like, can't talk sick, tired, sore throat, coughing sick. I could have been lounging all morning writing, but I noticed the dog had dropped clumps-o-hair, so I vacuumed.

Then I realized dirty baseball uniforms

needed to be washed...along with towels and unmentionables etc., etc., etc.

Now, I'm exhausted, and I can hear "resistance" chuckling. Chuckling I tell you. So, I thought I'd write about the damn thing and hopefully exorcise it: Out evil editor and saboteur and maker of doing dreaded housework, when I could totally get away with doing none! BE GONE! No really.

Steven Pressfield wrote a book to save us all, called: The War of Art

I know, in your brain, you're going, no she's wrong, it's called The Art of War, and was written like a bajillion years ago. Yes, but Steven Pressfield has made a lovely play on words with his title and a valid point:

Sometimes producing art feels like war.

Only in that you have to battle yourself and your well-meaning -- or not so much so -- loved ones.

So, if you've never done Candace Havens' Fast Draft or even heard about it. Check it out. Plus, read The War of Art, it will change something inside of you -- but the trick is to keep the change.

I think I've tucked-in resistance for a nap, and I'm off to write.

How does resistance rear its bulbous head in your life, and can you beat it into submission? Tell me how you do it.

MY "GIRLS IN THE BASEMENT" *

* I first heard this term from Jennifer Cruise, a long time ago, but here's a cool video current video link


So this has to do with my personal "girls" in the basement, the subconscious trio of story idea mongers -- I can see them and I want to share them with you:

None of which are what I see in my mind, but they come close

The top pic is clearly the bad-ass, I am not a bad-ass, yet, sometimes I wish I were, also, my writing NEEDS a bad-ass, to get things done, no matter the cost. Also someone to blow things up. She likes it when things blow-up.

The second pic is the thinker, she too helps in getting things done, she views the carnage of things gone horribly wrong...and figures out how to move the story forward in between "things getting worse-er."

The third is my dreamer, listening to her own voices and taking leaps of faith and coming up with implausible plots in story-land. Preferably without explosions.

When I stay out of their way, cool type things happen, the story moves forward, things explode, surprises are revealed, characters pop up -- the Master of Swords? Who the hell is this and what does she do? She?... See what I mean?

My foible is refusing to give up total control. I over-think to the point of Not Writing Anything.

Nothing.

If I could get out of my own way and let the girls rule for even a tiny bit, I think I could get so much more written.

I took Candace Havens Fast Draft workshop a few years ago... I have never, ever, everer, written so much in so little time as then. Why didn't I continue to use it? It scared me. No control, I mean things, words, sentences, plot twists came out of my fingertips (certainly not my brain) from nowhere. It was scary.

Which is why I need to try doing it that way again. Just let the girls drive.

What stops you from getting things done? And who are your girls?