Sore Muscles

By Bethany Maines

Writing is hard. 

I started out this blog with an eloquent soliloquy on the nature of writing and deleted it in favor of the truth.

Now, you might be thinking, “One word in front of another – how hard is that, really?” 

It’s not.  The question is, are those the right words, in the right order, at the right time?  Perhaps my statement ought to be, “Writing well is hard.”

But, no, I stand by original statement.  I sat down last night to write something fresh.  I’ve mainly been doing revisions for last few months and as I attempted to write something new I thought, “Dear God, this is like pulling teeth.  Didn’t I used to be able to do this?  In fact, didn’t I used to do this daily?” 

Apparently, I’m out of shape.  I feel like a fat ex-marathoner on a treadmill, all wobbly and confused about why things aren’t working the way they should.  It made me long for the good ol’ days when I could write a blistering pace and could sometimes finish whole chapters in day.  Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve been in this spot.  I’m the yo-yo dieter of writing.  I admire people who never seem to get out of writing shape.  But I find it very hard to do revisions and write at the same time. They exercise such different mental muscles that doing both is… well, it’s probably an excellent form of cross-training, but mostly it’s just hard.   So today, to avoid pulling a hamstring, I will be doing some warm up exercises of six-word short stories.  Feel free to post your own in the comments. 

3 Extra-Short Mysteries:

1. He died; she went to Cabo.
2. Postman rang once, but fired twice.
3. Insurance paid out – like she’d planned.

Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery series and Tales from the City of Destiny. You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.