Moving on to the next book

Well, I've finished my first book and now I'm on to the next project. The transition took longer than I thought it would since I couldn't concentrate on anything for a time. I discovered that my first story had something else to say and so I had to go back and take care of that.

Now, I can really focus on the story that was urging me to write it. My schedule has been altered for a good portion of the summer and I thought it was a bad thing, but it has turned out to be a very good thing instead. Due to not reading the fine print on a summer program that I signed my youngest son up for, I am driving over twenty miles each morning to get him there. Since he's only in the program for three and a half hours I get to entertain myself in that area of town.

Now if I had a better cash flow I could use this time to do some serious shopping, but since my budget is already screaming I am controlling those shopping genes and finding other entertainment. I am writing. I am writing for a good two to three solid, uninterrupted hours every day. I am in overdrive. It is so awesome and so gratifying. There are no phone calls asking me to buy windows and no kids asking for something else to eat, and no pets begging for attention. Just me, my laptop, and the voices in my head. It is heaven.

Since I can't distract myself with any of the above mentioned distractions and there are few chores I can accomplish while driving about a suburban neighborhood that I'm only vaguely familiar with I am using the time to its best advantage and I'm wriiting more than I thought I could in such a short period of time. You may have guessed by now that focus can be a problem for me, but this summer has taught me that taking a laptop to the library and letting myself be lost in my writing can be very productive. It will be an activity that will definitely be added to my fall schedule.

Real Life Gets in the Way

Okay, I'm still not finished. I've reached a difficult point near the end of this book and now my real life has taken over completely. I've been running around dealing with all the chaos of my family and their commitments and I must admit, I've avoided my story.

I know I need to get back to it, but I'm not quite sure what is going to happen next in order to end it. The characters seem to be going off in directions I didn't forsee, and now I need to reign them in again.

Okay. I've gotten that off my chest, now I'll get back to work and get this thing done.

Too many distractions

My writing has been going well, my main story is now almost 50K words. But I've found that when I get stumped on what happens next, I end up surfing other writer's blogs, or agent's or whomever. These are all very interesting writings and many have helped me to brainstorm ideas for my story, but they are all very distracting. They become a procrstinating toolwith the falsehood of 'helping' my writing or teaching me new and different things regarding writing and or publishing.

I need to allot a certain amount of time to reading some of these blogs and try to avoid adding to them when one of them enlightens me of another one. These blogs and other articles eat away at my day until I am left with almost no actual writing time accomplished.

Is this a problem for others? Do you have a criteria for choosing which blogs to read and which to ignore?