Personal Log Jams

Recently my Bandita Buddy Donna M. went to a Deb Dixon workshop on “Goal, Motivation and Conflict,” not because she doesn’t know about GMC, but because hearing this stuff one more time never hurts. Also, you never know when you might hear something that will suddenly resonate with you.

So when Donna returned from this workshop, she shared this tidbit that resonated strongly with me:

She said, you get to a level where you have to find your log jam log. Apparently, studies have shown that log jams can be busted up if you can just move this one key log. You break that one free and everything flows free.

Writing to sell can be like that. You have all the basics down, a good plot, turning points, three dimensional characters,…but there’s something - one thing - that’s holding back that manuscript from breaking free and being in high demand. THe trick is finding that one thing that is unique to you.

I’d never won a contest - finaled consistently - but never won. Until this one person pointed out this one fairly small problem. SUddenly (my historical) came in first in a regional contest - first time ever for me. Next was the GH. My time travel that I’d entered in FF&P’s contest won
.
I was shocked. That one fairly small problem apparently was my log jam and it wasn’t anything identified by an editor.

So good luck finding your log jam and blasting it out of the way.

Lately, I’ve been trying my darndest to figure out what my own personal log jam is, but so far I haven’t had much luck. Except I’m pretty sure it’s tied to the bad habit I have of giving EVERYTHING else priority over my writing. But that’s a topic for another post.