Seven months ago, I started a writing project: a collection of short stories. I surprised myself by completing synopses for 10 short stories in 12 weeks; the synopses average a little over 1,500 words. Following such a promising kickoff, my plan was to spend a month writing each of the 10 stories. But I got stuck on the first one (“Story 1”), a redo of a piece I had submitted for an online course a few years ago. I logged approximately 4,500 words of a projected 6,000+.

I knew I needed to see my creative coach, Ziva.

We met two days ago in her white Dodge camper van, parked with the windows down in the scenic lot of the local natural history museum. (Ziva was hosting houseguests, so we couldn’t conduct our session at her condo.) I thought she would tell me how to get “unstuck” so I could finish Story 1 and move on to the other nine. But turning to face me in the cab of the vehicle, she blew my mind with a quick-and-dirty way to produce my entire first book (“Book 1”): a curated compilation of my blog posts.

I loved her idea for speedily transforming content (that already exists!) into a publication. I will pull my 77 blog posts off the Web, put them in Word, organize them into sections, cut the ones that don’t fit (or that suck), write an introduction and maybe section intros, do some editing, format the manuscript, and distribute the document through CreateSpace (Amazon’s self-publishing tool). I assume this activity is meant to be psychologically liberating and affirming, and to provide a sense of accomplishment.

Before my 90 minutes with Ziva were over, I had enthusiastically accepted three additional assignments, none of which was to complete my partially written story:

1. Hone one of my synopses for the Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Competition. (That’s two “Shorts”s; entries must be 1,500 words or less.) The deadline is two weeks away.
2. Write synopses for 4 additional short stories for “Book 2,” my short story collection (with a new target of 12 to 14 tales total).
3. Set up an underutilized room downstairs as a writing den for myself. I am tempted to enlist a professional organizer to tame the space—or “kill the monster,” as Ziva puts it.

I’ll get back to Story 1 eventually, possibly in the spring. I kind of miss it already.