The problem with going through a major editing/revision/release process is that it eats up quite a lot of time I set aside for my writing. It leaves precious little time for any new work unless I sneak some time in during the day. [Which I’m doing right now…this post is being written in the slow moments of my Day Job.]
This makes me twitchy. I want to write something new, but deadlines loom. I don’t mind the editing/revising part of the job, but the longer it takes, the more I have that itch to pick up a notebook and start working on a new project. Not out of avoiding the revision process, but that I start feeling rusty. I feel the need to write new words somewhere, anywhere. My personal journal entries (which I write during my midmorning break) are getting more verbose, and I’ve been blogging like a fiend lately. My brain is clogged with Future Plans for When I’m Caught Up. I’ve got ideas for the Inktober art meme. I have a few stories simmering and a new MU story in stasis.
I believe it’s time for me to get creative with my writing time again.
[One of the best songs about football, hands down.]
The problem with Football Season is that it gives me one more reason to be distracted from my writerly duties. Not that I need more distractions…I already have the music, the social media, the Day Job, and everything else! Still, it’s a pleasurable distraction; as with music, I have it on in the background while I’m working on something else, glancing up at the screen every now and again when someone scores or executes a brilliant play.
Time can be tricky, especially when you’re attempting to balance the finite amount we’re allotted with the infinite number of things you want to use it for. I dedicate eight hours a day to my Day Job (I try to avoid overtime, and for the most part it’s never needed anyway), but during my breaks, I will sneak a few writing things in. During my 9:30am break, I’ll sit on the loveseat across the room and write an entry in my daily personal journal. During lunch I’ll read my writing magazines. During the afternoon break I’ll catch up on emails and whatnot. And on the rare occasion that I have a slow day, I may even work on a blog post. After we both log off, we head to the YMCA and work out on the treadmills for a bit, and have dinner soon after. This gives me a few hours at the end of each day, purely dedicated to my writing.
As said, the tricky part is what I should be working on, and when.
The thing about being a writer is that you most likely have about three or four different projects going on at the same time, each at various levels of completion. My current status involves the following: A Division of Souls is out in the world (yes, even at Amazon now — the physical copies are coming soon!), I’m currently working on the final edit of The Persistence of Memories, I’m writing the new Mendaihu Universe novel longhand, I’m carving out weekend time to pick Walk in Silence up again, and I have a few other fiction and non-fiction projects simmering on low heat in the back of my brain. And that doesn’t include my daily personal journal, weekly blog posting, popping up on social media now and again, and other non-writing things such as guitar noodling and songwriting. And there are things that keep getting put on hold, such as doing the daily 750 Words, my artwork and the Drunken Owl music recording project. So much to do, so little time.
See, this is why I have the whiteboard schedule. I haven’t been following it as of late due to the massive editing sessions for the Bridgetown Trilogy, and I think that’s a fair enough reason for putting everything on hold as of late. I don’t mind, because releasing the trilogy myself demands a lot of time and dedication, and I’m not about to do any of it half-assed. But now that the Big Release date has come and gone and that I’m letting it slow-simmer a bit while I figure out different ways to have fun with its promotion, I find myself with a bit more time on my hands. Which means my week or so of relaxation and mucking about online must come to a close. It’s time to refocus and dedicate the time that I have to what I want to get done.
Still, that’s not to say I’m not about to miss out on watching some football this season! I may be busy, but I’m not about to let that get in the way of having fun as well!
Between the trips to New York City and London, the weekend plans, multiple work-related issues and everything else, I’ve been so full up that I’d made the decision to clear the whiteboard schedule, temporarily stop work on a lot of creative projects, and focus only on the most important ones. That meant that I focused almost all my creative juices on the new Mendaihu Universe story. Little by little, I let a few things in as time permitted, such as guitar practice and photography.
Now that all the major events are out of the way for the time being, it’s time to get back to the grind and open up the floodgates a bit more. I’ve replanned the whiteboard schedule again; I’m not filling it up too much just yet, but I’ve added art, music and work on the Walk in Silence book back into the mix, and moved the updating of the WtBT blog to Mondays. I may revisit the daily 750 Words if time permits. And musically, I have a few ideas I’d like to record in demo form as part of the Drunken Owl project.
The temporary hiatus did have its positives, as I was able to provide better focus on what needed it, and still have time to relax. I was also able to recalibrate how I viewed my writing — not just the output but the style, and looking at what can be adjusted — to the point that I should also be able to do the same with my other writing projects that I put aside. Long story short, I’ve realized that the best practice (to borrow an annoying work-related phrase) for me is to do most of my writing longhand and use my PC time for revision and rewriting, and that’s how I plan to work from here on in.
These last few months have been a relaxing reprieve, but I’ll say this: it’s great to be back on schedule again.
Some of us writers tend to think of writing as separate from work and play, like it’s a third piece of the balancing-your-life puzzle rather than filing it under one or the other. I’m one of those, purely out of semantics. I think of ‘work’ as my day job. I think of ‘play’ as goofing around online, watching TV or going somewhere with A., or some form of entertainment. Writing?
Well, writing, at least for me, is a synergy between the two. It’s work — hella hard work sometimes — because my brain isn’t just thinking about the part of the story I’m telling at that very moment, but also thinking about the story’s end result so many as-yet-unwritten pages in the future. At the same time it’s an incredibly fun process, because I’m creating something and I’m proud of my ability to do so, especially after all these years of practice. To that end, I end up thinking of it almost as a second job, albeit one that I enjoy doing.
The trick, at least lately, is to remind myself not to sit on my ass all day long, sun up to sun down. There’s a life out there, outside of the nonstop chugging of my mind gears. That’s why we make it a point to hit the local YMCA a few times a week and take long walks on weekends. But I also need to remember that not everything on TV is crap. We’ve been really enjoying Wolf Hall on PBS the last few weeks, there’s always another Attenborough or Burns documentary to watch, and Canada and the UK seem to have a wealth of great mystery shows that we can stream.
Back in the early 00s (aka the Belfry Years), I had to remind myself to put down the writing and go out and play now and again. This is why I went on road trips to Boston and elsewhere, took the occasional night off to watch The X-Files, check out my current stash of comics, or read that new novel I’d just picked up. Still a bit sedentary to be sure, and I was still working out plot ideas in the back of my brain, but I made sure I didn’t become a hermit.
Nowadays I’ve made it a point to get up during break times at work; I’ll walk down to the lobby to check the mail or get that load of laundry. I’ll watch an episode of Murdoch Mysteries with A before heading up back to write for an hour or so. I’ll listen to my mp3 player and think about plot ideas while walking a half hour on the treadmill at the Y. I’ll still sneak in some writing whenever I can, but not entirely at the expense of living a life outside of writing.
It’s a tricky balance to maintain, and as always, there’s no set-in-stone way to go about it. It’s all about whatever works for you personally.
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