I'm participating in a month long writing challenge hosted by Laurie Halse Anderson called “Write Fifteen Minutes a Day” (WFMAD). Laurie Halse Anderson is one of my favorite authors- check out her latest book Wintergirls. She did WFMAD last summer as well and I wrote every day except twice and they were on Sundays. The Sabbath is suppose to be a day of rest so I didn't feel guilty about missing those few days.

For last year's WFMAD I was on a roll with a story. It's one I started piecing together back in 2002. I had character bios/photos, maps, and about seven pages before I started WFMAD. By the end of the writing month last summer it had grown to about thirty-eight pages with lots of updates and tweaking of characters. Yes, I averaged a page a day. For a mom who hadn't spent much time writing in the past decade that was HUGE!

I kept going a few days after the challenge ended but the document has been untouched since then- rotting away its forty pages.

Of course I have good excuses: about a month later I gave birth to baby number three and everything I'd established fell through the grates. Even that last month of pregnancy was void of any logical or creative thinking. I was on autopilot. Sorting and reorganizing baby clothes was about all I was good for, beyond caring for my boys of course. Excuses, in three varied sizes!

So here I sit, a year later, over a week into the WFMAD challenge and I still haven't touched my manuscript. I don't want to write anything until I reread it because that helps me get in the flow. And I've been avoiding reading it. But how do I find the flow without reading?

I can't!

I'm off to read so I don't have the excuse of not working on it. Plus, I'm giving myself homework... more on that next week.