Image via WikipediaEveryone who gives writing advice in this crazy little world seems to have one piece of advice in common: Do it at the same time of day every day, and don't try to squeeze it in whenever you can find time in between the rest of the things populating your schedule.A gigantic part of me wonders whether or not they live in the real world. Sure, published authors who already have money coming in from their books tend to have large chunks of time to set aside for writing, but what about the rest of us? What about the college student who's working part time at McDonald's and doing homework for their eight classes when they aren't at work? Is it impossible for them to write their novel if they have to do it during oh, say, eight ten minute sessions that they can manage to come up with if they move a thing or two around in their schedule?
There's the classic, "Your novel should be so important that you'll stay up late and lose sleep over it." argument, but what if you have children or a type of day job where you can't afford to lose that sleep? Or worse yet, what if you've already got items populating your schedule that you're losing sleep over?
I really don't have any advice on this other than that you should try to do it anyway, just as I am. Surely all of these writers were completely broke and constantly doing things to make ends meet before their 'big debut novel' that suddenly made them 'so rich' that they could afford to do nothing but write whenever they wanted.
I don't see why it's not completely possible for you to write a novel using what little time you can find when you can find it. There are going to be days when you'll literally have all day to write, and you can use those to the fullest extent. This is also why it's good to have a word goal instead of a time goal, which I fully advocate one hundred percent. It's easy to waste time, but words are nothing but pure progress.
Also, remember that no time is ever wasted, even if someone accuses you of wasting your time or theirs. Everything is a learning experience. Love it and benefit from it.
Would you consider trying out my new site http://freeblogging.me and tell me what you think. It’s like an online journal for free writing.
ReplyDeleteI agree. but what I can't stand is when I get interrupted when I plan to have time. Especially when it's that infamous 10 minute block that gets half-used by starting up the computer.
ReplyDeletespobin:
ReplyDeleteI love stream of consciousness writing like a fat kid loves cake...so I guess as much as I love cake. I've never tried it for fifteen minutes before, but I love the setup you've got there, and how when you start writing everything else just disappears. Usually when I try freewriting I've got a timer open in one window and an amazingly distracting word processor in the other, so I lose valuable minutes like crazy. I think I'll use this from now on :) Mind if I stick it in my links?
Anon:
I have misophonia, which most people just call noise anxiety, so I know just how you feel. It's so hard to find a time when not only is it perfectly quiet, but completely void of people barging through the door. You'll find some ways to juggle writing and life in general that might make you look sort of strange (I need old school headphones to get rid of sound completely -.-), but they're totally worth it. Writers are known for being strange :P
Maybe push the computer's on button with your toe while you're rushing past it to finish the thing you have to do right before xD.