The Last Day of WFMAD 2011

It’s a celebration!!!!!

You made it! Thirty-one days in a row of writing at least fifteen minutes a day!

::dances with abandon, horrifying everyone in the room and embarrassing the dogs::

Wait.

Why aren’t you dancing? Why are you looking at me like that? I know that I dance like Dorkasaurus Rex, but I have fun while I’m doing it, so it’s all good. ::resumes ghastly dance moves::

::stops dancing::

You mean you didn’t write for fifteen minutes every day during the month of August?

::Kool and The Gang stop playing and stare. A waiter drops of tray full of champagne glasses::

So?

I’m not going to scold you, silly. (You’re already doing a good job of that.) Besides, scolding has never turned anyone’s mood from anxious to creative. Listen up. You tried. That’s all any of us can do. I bet that if you’ve been (more or less) following these blog posts this month, that you’ve written more than usual, and you’ve thought about writing more than usual. And I bet that there are few of you (Carrie?) who managed to write every single day, or something close to that goal.

WFMAD is the time for us to come together and commiserate about the missteps we make with time management. When the self-flaggellation ends, I hope we can get down to the business at hand; restoring creativity to our lives, in whatever form feels right and good.

I’m not going to give you advice today. Or a quote. Or a prompt.

OK, I lied. I’ll give a little advice.

Life is short, my friends. Way too short. There’s not nearly enough time to love as much as we want and laugh and watch the stars and hold babies and eat good food and hang out with friends and express the creativity that God put in our hearts. So get to it.

If you want to write, make the time to do it. It’s as easy and as hard as that. When you’re done writing, I hope you’ll come back and dance with me. And with these two guys…

10 Replies to “The Last Day of WFMAD 2011”

  1. Awe… I did write–or at least edit–every day this month. Spent many hours total on both of my WIPs–the old and the new. It’s habit now, once again. Here’s to sticking with that devotion!

  2. I did not come even close to the doing the amount of “for me” writing on my WIP that I planned to do. BUT, I am also not going to beat my self up about it (anymore). I did, however, think about writing every day, and my brainwaves are flowing and ideas are percolating…

  3. I won’t celebrate writing for 31 days in a row but I am still happy because I read about writing 31 days in a row and I found your posts really inspiring. Thank you!

  4. Thanks again for a super WFMAD – I didn’t always use your prompts, and I didn’t write everyday, but everyday I DID think about writing. I think I might do a little dance anyway, just for the hell of it.

  5. Dancing and dancing and dancing with my words and paintings straight through the year and then some. Why not! 🙂

    Thank you – the investment you made was priceless.

    Jan

  6. I didn’t do everyday, but I knew the ones I had to do, and those busted down such walls that they’ll take me through the next year.

  7. Hello there! I’m new with this website and all this stuff, so I’m sorry if my comment seems awkward right now. However I would like to ask you some things about your writing skills (that are very good!) but I don’t have any idea of where I could ask you more… you know… with more privacy? Please, I would really be thankful if you, Laurie Halse Anderson, help this 17 year old wannabe writer. My english teacher make us read some of your books and I LOVE THEM (last year: Speak, right now: Twisted). So sorry (again) if my comment seems awkward but is the only place I have found like a chance to speak to you Ms. Anderson. I may be a normal student who liked your book like thousand of people out there, but please, I would really like to ask you a few questions as a young writer.
    If you ever read this Ms. Anderson, thanks for your time,
    IZZY

  8. Confession: I barely wrote this month. I loved a lot, played a lot, made a lot of excuses but when it all came down to it I should have written. I did write and submit to a contest and realized I need to do it more as if I just sit down and do it it gets done and I feel … relief? Achievement? both?

    And beautiful last video. So adorable and a comic relief to take our mind away from humdrums of like and make us realize if we have two minutes to watch someone else do what they love, we need to make more minutes to do what we love.

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