Scheduling and the Creative Process (January 22, 2010)

Partner to my writing creative process is my artistic creative process. It's one I've been overlooking lately. It's been probably a month since I did anything more than the occasional doodle in the margins of a notebook. I used to paint and draw and even collage occasionally. But lately I've found myself bereft of the willingness to break out even my Derwent Inktense pencils, which I dearly love, and work on something. I get a weekly art prompt from IlloAnnounce and yet I don't draw. (Perhaps it's because they didn't display my only submission a few months back and I feel snubbed by them, but that's another matter.)
 
Art has its own way of freeing me, as does writing. It's a completely different way of expressing whatever stuff is inside me that needs to be put down on paper, or, in some cases, electronically. I enjoyed the brief detour I took with my graphics tablet a few weeks ago, but nothing more has come of that. I pondered breaking out the tablet again this week, but the week seems to have gotten away from me. I have a lot of little chores to do, a bunch of actual work to do, and some hobby stuff, in various states of completeness, that would like a little love too. And household chores, don't get me started. Dark laundry leers at me from the hamper in the closet, reminding me that I will soon run out of clean socks if I don't wash it already. The newspapers on the kitchen table threaten to topple out of the chair I put them in, ready to crash to the floor in a petulant demand that they be put into a paper bag and tied up for the Boy Scouts to take one Saturday a month.

Time Flies

I find myself constantly asking, "Where does the time go?" And in response, my mind, trained on an old MUSH I've been a member of for years, says, "Schenectady, ma'am." Well, come on back from Schenectady, there, time, 'cos I got a lot of stuff that seems to not get done every day.

It comes down to scheduling, I suppose. My Morning Pages and daily writing sessions have imprinted a sort of framework for my day, but after dinner it all seems to go every which way. After dinner is, my mind seems to say, play time. You worked during the day, writing and whatever else, and now you get to play computer games, which is what I spend too much time doing in the evenings. And there's a variety of games I visit: I've got a lot to just play on my own, let alone the Internet games that involve other people.

I find that I have difficulty slowing down. The computer contributes to that. Sometimes I long for a quiet evening spent reading or doing artwork. I've been attempting to schedule myself a 'no computer evening' once a week, but that hasn't quite taken off yet. I used to have 'no computer' Saturdays, but my habit of sitting here and writing, on the computer, every day, has kind of put a damper on that. I get my best writing work done, so I believe, in the mornings, before lunch. So I sit here and type for a while before getting distracted by the Internet, eventually to be sucked down into the rabbit hole for at least an hour, reading email or checking Facebook or what have you. There's some time I can reclaim.

Writing Schedules

Writers write. It's a simple fact that anyone who's ever made a serious stab at being a writer has at least heard of. But for some, finding even an hour in which to squeeze some writing time can be a daunting task. Things like the Time Finder in Chris Baty's "No Plot? No Problem!" can be useful, but what about when you're not trying to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days? What about all the other months of the year when you're just trying to carve out some time for some article, poetry, or short story writing? There's a certain amount of discipline involved, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's periodically tossed up my hands and gone, "No way. It ain't getting done today." Too many of those and I lose my momentum, my drive, my place in whatever project I was working on.

Those of you who try to fit writing into your busy schedules: how do you handle it? Or are you in a place where you hit the end of the day and wonder where it went, and why so much of it was spent doing things other than writing?

Making Time to Write

In "No Plot? No Problem!", Chris Baty introduces the Time Finder, a tool useful for figuring out how in heaven's name you're going to find time to write a novel in a month. The Time Finder is great for NaNoWriMo, but it's a bit too powerful for establishing a regular writing schedule. If you want to choose now to whittle away all the little time-wasting activities in your life, you can go ahead and use the Time Finder as it's written. Personally I can give up leisure reading and Internet surfing for a month, but not indefinitely.

Instead, I'm going to use this tool as a kind of starting point for discovering those activities that are truly cuttable - mostly the little time-wasters that nickel and dime me out of productivity.

I filled out the Time Finder a few days last week and discovered, not entirely surprisingly, that the Internet sucks away more of my time than I intend. I've actually considered going offline during the time(s) I should be writing. Then I have to find another source of music, since I usually listen to a local classical music station over the Internet while I'm writing. It's very staticy over air, unfortunately. Still, that's doable for me. I just have to hit the discount and thrift stores and see if I can pick up some cheap classical or ambient music. I'm always bored with the music I actually own, which is why I listen to radio.

Once you find some time into which you can shoehorn a bit of writing, you need to decide on a writing goal. From experience with National Novel Writing Month I know that I can generally crank out at least 800-1000 words per hour. So I set my daily writing goal, initially, at 800 words, or one hour a day. Sounds doable. So I look at where I can carve out an hour, or perhaps a couple of half-hour sessions for writing.

Later on I'll lengthen the session or increase the target word count. Getting the habit established is my primary concern. You may have an idea of how you work as a writer and a person with things to do, so your method may vary. The point of the Time Finder is to dig a little writing niche out of the less-than-useful sections of your day. Trim out fifteen minute sessions if that's all you can manage. Some people work better in short bursts, others prefer to sit down for a while and get the day's work banged out all at once. If you don't know how best to schedule your writing, pick a session length that fits into one of the spaces you've made with the Time Finder and start with that. After a few days you'll begin to see whether you tend to sit longer and write or get antsy halfway through the session. And then you adjust accordingly.

The important thing is to sit down and write every day. This is advice which has been bandied about by writers for many years, and some disagree with it. Again, you know yourself, and if you're not sure, you'll find out once you give it a shot. It could be you work better with longer sessions less often during the week. I suppose the most important thing is to write. Whether you write every day or sequester yourself away for half a weekend, turn up at the keyboard or notebook and give your Muse a place to play. She'll be happier if you do.