I used to call myself a writer and do very little writing.
I was always looking for those long stretches of time when I could dedicate hours to writing, just lose myself in words, and work until the words swam on the page. Of course, those times were few and far between. Perhaps if I was a recluse, or an anchoress or, you know, in jail, I’d have that kind of time often.
But in real life, you have to make meals, and go out with friends, work a day job, look after the kids, practice your Taekwondo*, call your mother, and do the laundry. There aren’t often times when you can just write for hours without distractions.**
So I needed another plan, since waiting for free time and buying writing books/notebooks/new pens wasn’t getting any writing done. That’s when I decided to actually DO what some of the books suggested.
So now, at a minimum, I write for 10 minutes a day. I don’t count the writing I do for business clients or for the newspaper (unless I’m stuck and I need to create momentum by getting SOMETHING, ANYTHING done on those projects), I usually just count fiction. My fiction is the hardest to get to because it doesn’t pay anything yet *** so that’s the one I need the most prompting for – even though I enjoy writing it.
So, I have checklist for the month and every day I have to punch in 10 minutes of writing. And that’s 10 minutes of constant writing, not 10 minutes of staring at the screen. I open a blank page and start typing whatever comes into my head. Most of the time it forms something coherent, but lots of times it is just a long string of ideas.
And sometimes, sometimes it actually starts a real, live story. And then I come back to that same story for 10 minutes the next day, and the next until it is finished.
10 minutes is no time. You’ve probably already spent 10 minutes surfing the internet today (I know I did), why not spend it writing?
So, how long do you write? How do you fit writing into your life?
*Or that might be just me. :)
**Unless you are a full time writer and writing IS your day job but I’ll bet it is still hard to settle down to it. Lots of email to read, and sites to surf, and re-reading of stuff you’ve already written.
***Hopeful optimism right there.
My writing has always been sporadic at best. To challenge myself more, I signed up earlier this year to a really neat new writing contest called Coffee Shop Author. You have a period of six months during which you frequent your favourite coffee shop and write.
So far, I average a once-weekly visit…um, excepting the past few weeks for various reasons. (BUT, I think I redeemed myself somewhat in that I took a few minutes, at least once a week during those missed sessions, to work on that new writing.)
What I’m learning is that I can’t expect to write for long periods of time; with two small children and a husband who works a lot of evenings, it’s not very practical. I am learning to take the time to write when I can, even if it’s only for five minutes. That’s five minutes I might not have taken otherwise. Five minutes of writing I would have lost had I kept pressuring myself to wait until I had more time to write.
It sounds like you are making progress there, Avery. Finding a system that works for you is just such a huge thing.
I like the idea of the Coffee shop thing, I’m going to look into it. Thanks!
I set myself a quota of 1000 words to write every day. Then, every day that I write 1000 words, I put a little X through that day on the calendar in my day-planner. One day 1000 words can take less than an hour, but another day it can take most of an evening. What matters is getting at least 1000 words done, because by the time I get that far, sometimes I’ll go on to write several times the quota.
Once I get a few days built up, I tend to keep with it, because I don’t want to break the string. When the string ends up broken it might take a few days to get back, and there might be several false starts with only two or three days in the string, but it helps keep momentum going.
i’m quite good in witing but i have not yet signed up on a writing contest *
last time, i joined a writing contests on the internet and i won a small price for writing a nice piece of writing ;~’
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