I’m writing this in mid-August, so I haven’t seen anyone else’s posts yet, but I can tell just by looking at the names of Kelly’s other guests that the last 29 days have been chock full of good advice, clever tips, and wonderful inspiration from highly productive writers.

I am not, however, one of those highly productive writers, and so this post is directed at those of you who find it as hard to get those words written as I have recently. Maybe I can teach by bad example. Let’s see how this goes:

Hello, my name is Lisa Hendrix, and I haven’t finished a book since 2010.

[Wow. That looks even worse in print than it sounds aloud.]

Here’s some background. I’ve been writing since 1990 and have been published since 1994. I think Nora finished eleventy-billion books in those 20 years. I finished eight. I’m not a fast writer, but this time it has gotten way out of hand. Being mortifyingly aware that this post will appear right after that of Yasmine Galenorn, who’s remained highly productive despite challenges that would stun most people into immobility, I’m not going to embarrass myself by trotting my excuses out. They’re pitiful.

What they amount to, is…I haven’t finished anything in four years because I haven’t written.

That’s not precisely true. I have about 70,000 words in a Scrivener file, and I peck away at the story every now and again. But it’s true enough.

I finished Immortal Champion in a blaze of caffeine-fueled glory during the 2010 RWA National Conference. If you were in Orlando, you might have seen me stumbling through the hallways in a sleep-deprived stupor or heard me snoring in a workshop (only once, I swear!). I basically collapsed afterward, telling myself I’d start later, when I recovered. I roused myself a few weeks later when my editor sent back revisions, then again when copy edits and final galleys came. Somewhere in there, I began the fourth book in the Immortal Brotherhood series, Immortal Defender, but I didn’t work consistently. Other things to do, you know. Important things. In January of 2011 when Immortal Champion came out, I signed at ALA Winter in San Diego and went on a ten day West Coast book tour with Delilah Marvelle.

And then I completely stalled.

Like I said, there were reasons, which seemed valid at the time but now look like utter bullshit when I look at the things other people have written through. Bottom line: I didn’t write.

Oh, I promoted. I Tweeted and Facebooked, and blogged a bit, and…avoided. The longer I didn’t write, the less inclined I was to try. Even opening the file became painful.

In the meantime, my fans have been asking for the next book, and in my embarrassment, I’ve been avoiding them, too. Picture that: I have fans that want my book and I have a contract with a NY publisher (which I’m way overdue on, needless to say), and I still haven’t gotten the  book done. Those of you who write on with no external motivation at all have my deep admiration.

By this point, you may be asking yourself why on earth I’m hanging myself out in public with this depressing story of non-accomplishment?

Because I want to fix myself.

Because I want to change my trajectory.

And because I know there are other people out there who struggle in the same way and want to show them it’s possible to change theirs, too.

Therefore, I’ve set myself a challenge: to finish at least the first draft of Immortal Defender by the end of September, i.e. by the time you’re reading this.

I’ve already announced this to my local writers group, and now I’m announcing it here, writing to you in the future from Friday, August 22 when I had to have this to Kelly.

This is about more than getting the book done. I want to get my mojo back. I want to get back into good writing habits and rediscover the joy of slipping into the flow of the story. I want to be done with this damned book so I can start the next one and do the first draft of a second during NaNoWriMo, and then keep writing all the other stories bouncing around in my head. And the only way I can do any of that is by getting back into the habit of writing: every day, a minimum of 1250 words per day. If I do that, by the time this goes live on September 30, I should be finished.

I will come here and tell you if I made it. You’ll know instantly what I’ve accomplished in the 40 days since I typed the following words:

I, Lisa Hendrix, will finish Immortal Defender by September 30, 2014.

So, there’s my plan. And buried in all that are my Tips (you didn’t think I was going to leave you without Tips did you?):

• Write every day. Make it a habit, lest you veer off the path like I did.
• Set a goal, and as Debbie Macomber taught me, make it SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely (as in with a time frame).
• If you try all that and still aren’t getting your writing done, set things up so you’re accountable to someone, or as I’m doing here, to many someones. Everyone is motivated by something different, but for me, public humiliation seems to be the next step.

Check the first Comment(s) below to see if I made it. And then come over to my site, lisahendrix.com, and found out what’s next in my writerly makeover.

A little about Lisa: