Revisiting the Resistance
For the first time since 2011, yeah write will be plowing through the summer without taking a break for a summer writing series. The editors have been doing a great job teaching as they go, and there are ongoing workshops in our Google forum called the coffeehouse. If you need any extra feedback or you’d love to carry around in your back pocket Rowan our submissions editor, you can become a yeah write member.
I will miss hosting the summer series, so out of nostalgia, I’m reprinting a short post from guest editor Chad Simpson from yeah write #117 weekly writing challenge in July 2013. The open submissions challenge will be at the bottom of the page. Just look for the blue button that says “add your link.”
Miracle in Four Parts
In his book The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, Steven Pressfield dubs all that might keep us from the work of writing Resistance.
“There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t,” Pressfield writes, “and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.”
Before I wrote the above two sections, I accomplished about fifteen other things today. I’ve been putting off this particular task, this thing I’m writing right now, for weeks. This morning I clipped my fingernails. I mowed the yard.
I’ve been thinking for quite a while about what I want to do with these 500 words yeah write editors Flood G and Erica M have afforded me, but the truth is: That thinking I’ve done, while somewhat productive, is only marginally helpful. Once I overcome Resistance and put my fingers to the keyboard, I don’t know what’s going to happen until the first utterances I type find their way to the screen. These utterances, these nouns and verbs and prepositional phrases, eventually become sentences. These sentences help me to find my way when I only have some vague idea of where I’m headed.
This week’s ultimate question is the optional writing prompt for your entry in the nonfiction challenge
Why didn’t the dog bark?
I have no idea, but that’s for you to answer if you need a writing prompt. If the dog is my border collie, however, it probably didn’t bark because I finally had to sedate her so I could get some sleep. Hey, it happens. Don’t judge.
How to submit and fully participate in the challenge:
1. In the sidebar of this week’s post, please grab the code beneath the nonfiction badge and paste it into the HTML view of your entry
2. Follow the Inlinkz instructions after clicking “add your link” to upload your entry to this week’s challenge grid
3. Your entry should appear immediately on the grid if you don’t receive an error message
4. Please make the rounds to read all the entries in this week’s challenge
5. Consider turning off moderated comments and CAPTCHA on your own blog
This summer, all our grids are unmoderated which means all submissions meeting the basic guidelines will be published Thursday on yeah write. Those entries will be open to a popular vote with the winner celebrated on Friday.
Thank you for sharing with us your hard work! Good luck in the challenge…
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