writerly ways

[cornerofmadness]

Carving out time.

Isn't this a problem for anyone who wants to write (or do anything creative for that matter). Some times I struggle with it. I am definitely struggling now. However, in the future, weekends may be writing time since I've learned my fancy new internet has too many damn users on the weekend and slows down.

That said I've isolated my single biggest issue time wise. I'm an idiot who wastes it online. A lot.

For inspiration and help I look to other authors who have some advice for this issue. To paraphrase Stephen King, treat writing as a job. I need to do this more. To set aside a time say 9:30-10:00 just to write. Nothing else. No facebooking, no emails etc. Just write.

This is why I do better with competition and prompts. You give me a challenge, I won't let that go. It gives me the self discipline I otherwise lack.

How do you all make yourself write?

I did sign up for Camp Nano (DocDana) for 10K which is all I've written to date. Scary. So in one month I plan to double my word count more or less.

Yearly count -

11109 / 125000
(8.89%)

I really can't put up anything else since I've done so little. I'm ashamed.

Comments

[sholio]

Ugh, I am SUCH a lazy Internet time-wastrel. I am trying to put measures in place to cut down on my time-wasting, even to the extent of occasionally blocking websites where I spend too much time (like that timesucking Fallen London game, aargh!). One thing that often helps for me is having daily or weekly "to do" lists. I have a Sierra Club engagement calendar (pretty pictures!) next to my computer, and each week I start with a creative "to do" list written at the top of the page (selecting from some very limited subset of all the projects I'm working on at the moment). There is still a lot I need to do to improve my work habits, but it does help to pick something and say "I will write 10,000 words on this thing this week" (or whatever); otherwise I can dither forever between all of my projects and not get anything done. I can also be very competitive, so making it a competition with myself is useful -- I like to try to top my daily or weekly word-count records, for example. :D

But yeah, I feel your pain. I often end up kicking myself because I wasted a whole evening online when I could have been getting stuff done.

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

I try to curb my Internet use while writing by keeping separate computers for separate tasks--games and surfing on the HP (big screen, big memory, ad blocker software), writing on the Acer (ergonomic keyboard, no ad blocker so I'm punished with annoying ads if I surf).

It's not carving out time that's a problem with me, it's making other people respect the time I set aside. I do try to keep "office hours," but apparently writing doesn't look like work. My father, especially, has no compunction about calling me to come help him with something, or drive him down to the computer store, or run some other errand while I'm trying to write. I don't look busy to him, so he doesn't feel like he's interrupting anything--and he gets pouty if I tell him I'm trying to work and his errand has to wait. I know I'm not the only author or work-from-home businessperson who's encountered this problem, either. I've read about it in Dear Abby often enough, but the message never seems to sink in. Grr.

On the plus side, the writers' group _makes_ me find time to write, and produce something every time I sit down. We are lucky to have found each other (thank you, NaNo), and I realize that more and more as my word count piles up and novels get written (and critiqued, refined, and rewritten) instead of languishing on the hard drive of some laptop on a shelf.

The Internet is indeed a wonderful, shiny toy. We'd probably all be better off if we had service blackouts on a regular basis.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking about doing Camp NaNo myself. But I'm hesitant. In the past, during NaNoWriMo, i haven't necessarily found that the pressure to write words--any words as long as you meet the word count goal--is helpful. It favors quantity over quality.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

quality is what revision if for. I find it very helpful to just keep moving forward so I don't end up repolishing the same three chapters

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I do the same. I sometimes just sit with the netbook which has a virus-murdered internet connection.

Yeah I face that when I'm home. I'm lucky that I live alone most of the time without that issue. My time issues are of my own making.

I would like to see my Nano group meet more. We're making efforts to do so but we haven't hammered out things to be a real critique group (i'm not sure all of us are interested in that). At least I have my by email group.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

this is much how I do it as well. Which is why nano and competition works for me. I'm big into word wars and if nothing else I need to get better at setting weekly goals

I'm forgiving myself for last week. It was a new shiny and GOOD internet so I was distracted by it

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm in the revision stage, then. I just have to fill in the gaps from my new second draft outline and was hoping a word-count kick in the butt would help.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

sounds like a plan

[priarani560.livejournal.com]

I so hear you babe.....

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

it's a universal problem i think

[gaia-lulia.livejournal.com]

I find this really difficult myself, and I also waste time like crazy. I sometimes actually turn off my internet so that it's harder to be distracted. But it's also hard to be creative in the evenings after the kids go to bed- I'm just so tired.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

the internet is a giant time suck and I don' t know how people with kids do it.