On Writing Routines
Mar. 13th, 2011 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
abracanabraIt's easy for me to establish routines. It's important for me to sometimes stop and consider what I'm spending my time on.
Case in point the first: I've really enjoyed writing the combined daily activity blog/writing log posts, and doing freewriting is an excellent tool for generating story ideas (even if only 1 out of 7 is good, that's still more ideas than I have time to write) and for keeping the writing pipes unclogged--but put together, they were taking up the first half-hour+ of dice-designated "writing time."
Case in point the second: Rolling the dice is a really good technique for me to keep me motivated with the carrot of variety-in-activity, and it helps me feel good about getting to obscure to-do items that otherwise just never even get touched--but writing should be my first priority, not my first among many, even if it means other important-but-not-as-important things don't get done as often.
So I have altered the program! Mandatory 1 hour of writing a day, to be spent only on writing, not on freewriting or writing logs or editing or submissions or other writingy things. Mandatory means even if there's something on TV I want to watch, or if I get home super-late and am exhausted--I still have to do the hour. No days off. (If I'm so out of it/exhausted that I think my writing will be crap, I can work on side project writing instead of main project.) This is the new X chain on the calendar. I set the timer, I turn it away so I can't see how much time is left, I activate leechblock, I don't try to track how many words I've written so far, and I write.
I don't write my best for the first hour of writing time. I don't write my best late at night or when I'm tired or distracted. But I will be writing. And if my writing quality goes straight to crap, well, I'll just have to stop and consider.
Case in point the first: I've really enjoyed writing the combined daily activity blog/writing log posts, and doing freewriting is an excellent tool for generating story ideas (even if only 1 out of 7 is good, that's still more ideas than I have time to write) and for keeping the writing pipes unclogged--but put together, they were taking up the first half-hour+ of dice-designated "writing time."
Case in point the second: Rolling the dice is a really good technique for me to keep me motivated with the carrot of variety-in-activity, and it helps me feel good about getting to obscure to-do items that otherwise just never even get touched--but writing should be my first priority, not my first among many, even if it means other important-but-not-as-important things don't get done as often.
So I have altered the program! Mandatory 1 hour of writing a day, to be spent only on writing, not on freewriting or writing logs or editing or submissions or other writingy things. Mandatory means even if there's something on TV I want to watch, or if I get home super-late and am exhausted--I still have to do the hour. No days off. (If I'm so out of it/exhausted that I think my writing will be crap, I can work on side project writing instead of main project.) This is the new X chain on the calendar. I set the timer, I turn it away so I can't see how much time is left, I activate leechblock, I don't try to track how many words I've written so far, and I write.
I don't write my best for the first hour of writing time. I don't write my best late at night or when I'm tired or distracted. But I will be writing. And if my writing quality goes straight to crap, well, I'll just have to stop and consider.