By Leslie Lindsay

I have a little thing called a “writing buddy.”  She is a great person I met while at the Write-by-the-Lake Conference I attended in June (Madison, WI).  We got to talking over email, clicked, and well…the rest is history. 

If you are a writer, you know just how intense and isolating it can be.  You know how your confidence tends to wane at times and how there are days you just don’t feel like writing?  Of course, if your “day job” isn’t writing, then you really have no accountability to produce anything, “Who cares…I’m not on deadline,” you say.  “I’m not getting paid to do this, so wouldn’t my time be best spent doing something else?”  Sigh…I feel your pain.

Ah-ha–enter the writing buddy.  You see,  it all *sounds* so halcyonic and helpful…having a writing buddy…and it is meant to be just that.  But it’s hard.  For example, yesterday I didn’t want to look at revisions.  I choose retail therapy instead.  And then today, I had a crying kicking screaming 5yo who did not want to board the bus bound for kindergarten.  At.  All.  She even unclippedher seatbelt after the bus driver waved me on the bus…running off screaming, “I’m not going to school!”  I kid you not.  (retrieved from Wikipedia 8.29.12)

Monday, it was the dog who is driving me nuts by peeing on the carpet.  I can’t get the smell out and so she goes back again and again to the same spot to relieve herself.  To the vet we went.  And away went my money.

And today, well today–after the bus meltdown–I am not wanting to write.  Not fiction, anyway.  Maybe a nice long email or note to my school about making sure these full-day kindergartners are nurtured, but that really wouldn’t add to my word-count for the week, would it? 

But the thing is, this writing buddy idea is good, not just for keeping me accountable for my writing, but she has become a good friend, too.  I bet she understands. 

Write on, Wednesday!