If I'm going to be a successful writer, and I define success very liberally, I need to devote some time to it daily. I typically use my Friday days off to spend 3-5 good hours writing up drafts of a variety of potential blog posts that later I go back and update with more timely information, details, or researched facts. Sunday mornings I spend a couple hours usually before anyone else is up in my house, banging the keys of my computer. I always have a couple notebooks with me to jot down ideas, small, big, boring, and maybe interesting to later try and write a piece. Sometimes my blog posts are just a journal entry of what is going on in my life. Talk about uninteresting!
Most mornings I get up and either write a fresh post, or update one of the drafts, finalize, and hit the publish button. Sometimes I have several in the cue and have scheduled the publishing. Some days, there is nothing in my head, in my notebook, or drafted in a cue. Those are days I might get caught up reading blogs I might have missed. People can probably tell the days that either I have nothing to write myself, or is my work day off because I will comment a blue streak. Even when I do not comment, I read a pretty large core of blogs regularly. This is part of my writing routine. I hope it doesn't come across as stealing an idea, but so often one of my blogger friends, or a blogger I read, but doesn't do any interaction with me, raise a subject that sparks ideas of my own. I try to remember to link back to the source of the original idea-give credit where credit is due. Bloggers are a community, right.
This year I have big writing goals-namely to finish the elusive book. I actually have a couple started, but one is so near completion, I should be able to taste it, but for some odd reason, I am not finishing the bite. I've decided to devote Friday and Saturday nights to this endeavor. Even if we go out for the evening, it is rare that we are out past 10:00. I also have a hard time going to bed when I get home, so have a bad habit of watching something into all hours of the night. I could be using that wide awake time to invest in completing the book. Show choir chaperoning weekends aside, this should give me a good 4-8 devoted hours a week, potentially having the first draft ready for editing by mid June.
That's my plan. I welcome encouragement in the form of poking and prodding along the way. If you can't tell, this is a post written several days ago, dusted off and scheduled for publishing today.
I wish I thought of things to post in advance, but I am not as disciplined are you are. I envy your ability to preplan posts.
ReplyDeleteHaving a dedicated writing time is a great idea as is keeping books with ideas. I have a notebook that goes everywhere with me called "brilliant Ideas" and I jot things down that make me laugh to think back on at a later time. Unfortunately I don't always do the recollecting so 5 years down the pipe I will reread something like "LIsa/paper tower/grocery store parking lot" and know it made me laugh at the time but now I have no idea why it was funny.
Somedays I use writing to avoid everything else I should be doing. My scribbles aren't always meaningful later either.
DeleteYou are most certainly NOT stealing ideas by reading blogs in lieu of having inspiration to write. Any successful writer will tell you that if you want to become a writer yourself, the best thing to do is read, read, read.
ReplyDeleteIn high school, I had an English teacher who insisted on "automatic writing" before random classes. The requirement was that we were to have a separate spiral notebook dedicated to only this exercise. He would announce "take out your journals, and start writing," and have us write for a period of 5 - 10 minutes. Other days, he'd tell us to pick up our journals and read them to ourselves, marking ideas that we'd like to revisit. Each quarter, he'd walk by just to see that we had written--not to check the content, and that was our grade for that assignment. When I got to college, this exercise was the one I relied upon heavily to jump start my term papers. Ever the studious scholar, I would be the student in the library the first day the paper was assigned, doing research. When I found a piece of research that piqued my interest, out came my spiral notebook! So, I guess my point in this long winded comment is that the technique you use to get your book complete is the technique you will use to get your book complete. As long as you give credit where credit is due, as a writer, I would be flattered to think I inspired a blog post. As far as your book, well, if it's fiction, remember the beauty of fiction is that if you need a fact, you can simply make it up.
Thanks Meg!I feel a bit more motivated.
DeleteHow to become a good choreographer, steal as any ideas as you see and try to implement. Stealing ideas,and plagiarizing are two different things. I want to be a writer also, just no time. Advice?
ReplyDeleteThanks for difference. I just don't want to come off repetitive to others.
DeleteExcellent advice. Any habit we hope to nurture should have a set time done daily with everything else circling around it. Write at a set time - not when you find time or when 'inspired.' good luck
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