On writing and needing a gimmick to write

I’ve discovered recently that I need gimmicks to write. At some level, it offends me that I need to have some trick to convince myself to do what I know I want to do, but the fact is that it’s a valuable bit of psychology that actually works.

For example, I’ve struggled to meet my self-imposed word counts for the first three months of the year, missing March’s altogether. In March, I decided to do Camp NaNoWriMo in April, and even though it’s only one day down, I’m already feeling more invigorated about writing than I have since November and NaNoWriMo last year.

What I’ve come to realize is that both NaNoWriMo and its camp version represent a form of accountability, so very tenuous yet necessary so that I am not lying to myself about the progress I’m making. Needing to write 1667 words a day and knowing others, even if they’re people I only know online, are watching is enough to motivate me to move forward.

Realizing this, I plan to seek out more challenges and the like to make this a year-around motivation instead of April, July, and November. Hopefully, having that motivation will help me move forward on what I want to be doing that much faster.

Hooray for psychological tricks.

DLH

The Rambling Road: Vampires

An unfortunate side effect of my current circumstanceĀ is that I now have to have regular blood draws to keep track of whatever it is my body is up to. I’ve never been a fan of needles, so this is a cause of no little distress, and I find I’m even more distressed by the fact I’m getting used to being stuck on a regular basis.

I’ve also developed something of a grading system for the quality of the stickers. Part of my aversion to needles is that I have always been a hard stick with soft, rolly veins that often collapse when penetrated by a needle. Finding someone who can get me on the first try is a rare commodity, and I do my best to remember who they are and what they did for future reference.

Today’s sticker was a keeper and usedĀ a few tricks I’ve never seen before like using an upside-down blood pressure cuff instead of a tourniquet to help things along. If I’m going to have to do this on some kind of a regular basis, tricks like that are worth remembering.

DLH

Read more at my The Rambling Road weblog…