How many hours, in the last week, did you spend doing something writerly? Blogging about writing, researching for your writing, reading the books like every good writer says you should, etc.
Less than five hours? Less than ten?
For me, I honestly couldn’t tell you. The last week was a good one for me – I finished and read three books, made some final touches on my first chapter for a contest, figured out what I’m going to write on my other blog for upcoming blogfests, participated in some blogfests, got an idea and a partner for a blogfest I want to host, figured out the complications with a flat character, twists in the story that I couldn’t figure out how to write….you get the idea.
And I don’t want to count the hours.
In the land of writing, of which we are all citizens, there are many different things we HAVE to count – words in our manuscripts, days before we can expect a response, days before we assume we aren’t going to get a response, the minutes or hours it may take to reach the goals and the list goes on.
But if you were to ask any writer why they do it, the response seems to be that they can’t imagine not doing it. Writers have loved writing since they were young – the sorrows and joys of characters, the adventures and self-discoveries.
Writers write because they love the word.
Loving the word means there is no need to run out for sugary heart shaped sweets. The word will be around LONG after petals from the roses fall from the stem. And the word will always continue to challenge us, push us to discover something we may not have even known existed, allow us to experience sorrow and wait patiently for us to return and experience it all again.
How do you plan to celebrate your love of writing and words today? Tomorrow? What steps are you taking to nurture this relationship for a long, long time?
Thinking Through Our Fingers 
Actually I don't really care about words. I care about stories. The words are like the paints or the clay an artist uses in order to make a painting or sculpture.
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*Celebrating my love of words by adding a few new words to my vocab. I like to open the dictionary, pick five, and and work them into a scene as a warm-up. Also wrote a blog entry about my first sale when I started writing for kids 10 years ago, which happens to involve a valentine! Happy Valentine's Day!
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Unfortunately, I'm back at work after taking 2 days off to publish my book, and I am SWAMPED. Then, a workout and our bi-weekly dinner with my dad. Which is always nice. But really, not much writing. A bit of blogging, and I'm trying to catch up on blog comments. 🙂 Happy V-day!
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Don't you love productive weeks like that! This is such a great post and so true. The words will last forever. I am planning on doing a blog post about LOVE but we will see…day is cruising WAY too fast. Happy V Day!
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I just attended a writer's conference last week and this very thing came up in several panels. You have to write for the love of it or you'll never last. I have no idea how many hours I've spent on writing this week. Today is my birthday so I'm going to skip the cleaning and write as much as I want as a gift to myself.
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Wow! I love this post!!! I have been nurturing my word love relationship well this last week, but the week before that, we were a bit distant. This week I've gone beyond revision writing and blogging (both nearly daily the last three days) and have been freewriting, and playing with words.
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It's a good thing the word is consistent because I'm sure not. This was a lovely post though and definitely motivates me to embrace my love of words more often.
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Today, after catching up on blogs, I'll be editing my WIP! Nothing says love like editing, haha. Then I want to pull out some old poems and see if any would be worth submitting.
Shannon at The Warrior Muse, co-host of the 2012 #atozchallenge! Twitter: @AprilA2Z
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