A Writing Marathon 

When I was much younger and in school, before my knees became weak, I used to run. However, I was a long-distance, endurance runner and didn't have the speed to sprint. Maybe that's due to a stubborn streak that can persevere and sometimes refuses to give up.

I find a similar thing true in my writing. More than any other genre, I am a book writer, mainly historical fiction but also contemporary and a little non-fiction. Even as a reader, I don't want anything less than 100 pages, because I'm never happy with how the short novellas develop (or under-develop) the character, plot, or story. 

Surprisingly, I've found this true with how I write too. I'm not good with short periods to write with a lot of starts and stops. I do much better when I can find a block of time. After I've written for over an hour, the words began to flow much easier and faster, and time whizzes by without me realizing it.

Take this last week for example. I wrote 20,000 words on my new book, In from the Storm, set in Wyoming in 1875. But I found some good hunks of time to lose myself in the writing. With my busy schedule, that's not always possible anymore.  It's not my best record by far, however. When I stayed at home to be my mother's caregiver, I once wrote 18,000 words in one day and completed an 89,000-word rough draft in three weeks. I don't even think about doing that in my present situation, but 20,000 words in a week is still good.

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