Any respectable social media-tor keeps blogs updated. They do not let a blog lapse for three years before posting again. There’s no way around this: I am a blog laggard. Maybe worse. “Laggard” indicates a not very snappy pace. For the last three years, I’ve had no pace at all–just a loud silence of zero posts.

So what do I have to say about writing today? I am on break from teaching, and I am writing fifteen minutes each morning (most mornings, and definitely not before coffee) without planning what I’ll write, without getting hyper concerned with perfection, without revision. It’s a lovely thing. I usually generate at least two handwritten pages.

This practice reminds me of James Scott Bell’s 350s, a guideline that says just write 350 words before you do anything else in your day. I learned about 350s in Scott Bell’s Plot and Structure, but you can read about this practice in Scott Bell’s Writer’s Digest article, “10 Disciplines for Fiction Writers.” Enjoy!