Days 5-6:

I have had a couple people let me know that they had read my blog.  It's nice knowing I'm not just writing this and putting it out into nothingness.  Twelve people read my my last blog entry the day I posted it, plus a few since then.  Not too shabby, eh?

I've been discovering the importance of having a set schedule for writing, because I have not been doing a good job of writing consistently.  Actually to say 'writing' would be a lie.  I've more been trying to figure out a few issues with my plot-line.  The problem is that I've hit some sort of wall already.  I don't have enough momentum yet to see exactly what is going to happen next.  In those first words I have written I tried to jump right into the action, writing about the events that set the whole book in motion.  If that led straight to the rest of the rising action I'd be in great shape, but it doesn't exactly.  In my book it does not make sense to do that, and plus I've got to establish a little more of a base first.  I don't plan to have the story linger on that for long because I don't want things to move slowly.  Once I can get past that I think the story will start to write itself.  I hope.  Cross your fingers for me!

Tonight I am going to force myself to sit down and write, not plan.  I need to download one of those programs that turns off my access to the internet for a period of time to make sure I don't get distracted.  Stumbleupon is henceforth my enemy.

Before I end this blog entry, I want to post a link.  For those who haven't heard of him, Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon who died of pancreatic cancer in 2008.  Before he died, he gave a lecture called Really Achieving your Childhood Dreams (famously known as The Last Lecture).  If you are like I had been and had heard about it but not seen it, please watch it.  The professor for my lab wanted me to watch it when I started my job, and I recently re-watched it with my novel in mind.  It is phenomenal.  Watch it here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo