If you are a follower of this blog, you may have noticed a precipitous drop in my output over the past few months. When I began the blog, I intended to post two to three times per week. I eventually came to accept that such frequency was not sustainable given the competing demands of full-time work and parenting; still, I thought I was good for one post per week. I might feel rather sheepish confessing this if not for the fact that since January I have been working intensively on establishing a workable writing routine and pressing on with a novel manuscript I began in November. My new priorities have rendered blogging an occasional thing, and I’m fine with that. After all, the blog has served its original purpose as a means of building and flexing my writing muscles, atrophied from years of non-use. Now those muscles are a bit more toned and are being strengthened through a cross-training routine of fiction and essay writing. I’m even feeling fit enough to add some blogging back into the mix.

Lisa Romeo: writer, editor, teacher, coach, drill sergeant.
Lisa Romeo: writer, editor, teacher, coach, drill sergeant.

At the beginning of the year, I wrote that I would be taking a five-week, online course–*I Should Be Writing* Boot Camp: Reclaiming Your Writing Life–offered by writer Lisa Romeo. It was one of the smartest things I’ve done in a long while. Through weekly written lessons and assignments, Lisa helped me distinguish real, practical obstacles to carving out time for writing–for instance, a 40-hour per week job–from what Lisa calls “mental maneuvers,” such as the little fibs we tell ourselves about how “busy” we are while wasting precious chunks of time on Facebook and weekend viewing sprees of whole seasons of cable television series. Maybe that’s just me. But I’m pretty sure it’s not. Lisa’s boot camp helped me see not only where the time goes, but also the unconscious processes behind why I fritter it away. Following the boot camp, I signed up for two months of individual coaching with Lisa in order to focus on my novel manuscript while availing myself of her knowledge of all things writing, from submitting essays to literary journals to applying to low-residency MFA programs. If you are a writer who needs a kick in the pants to begin taking this whole writing enterprise seriously, you could do no better than to sign up for Lisa’s boot camp.

The reason I’m telling you this today is that you have mere hours to get in on one of the last group boot camps that Lisa will be able to run for a while.** If I had taken Lisa’s boot camp just to benefit from her knowledge and experience, that would have been enough. But the group format has the added advantage of mutual support and shared wisdom of writers with varied backgrounds and experience. I know of two novelists who took Lisa’s *I Should Be Writing* Boot Camp to figure out how to direct their writing energies following the publication of a first book or a series of books. So no matter where you are in your writing career, you stand to gain from participating in the boot camp. The group boot camp starts this Monday, April 14, so don’t procrastinate (Lisa can help you with that too). Visit Lisa Romeo Writes for more information.

**Lisa also offers an on-demand solo course, but I would recommend trying the group option at least once.