Time Management
by William Womack, February 17th, 2009
5:30: The alarm goes off and I slap it on the head. Groggy. Think of some bizarre dream I had. Wonder why I waste so much mental energy on drivel while in REM sleep. Wish I had some revelation about my novel instead, but no…
6:00: Cold water on face, teeth brushed, coffee in hand. I sit down to read myself awake in my office. The house is dark and quiet. I like it. Lose myself in a novel for a good half-hour or forty-five. Think of it as inspiration.
7:00: Ready or not, it’s time to start my own writing. Fire up computer. Give a quick peek at email. Check news sites. Decide I’m stalling. Launch Word. Ctrl-End to get to page 205 of my manuscript. Try to recapture what I was thinking when I wrote those lines. Back up a few pages. See things that need changing. Shorten sentences, make them punchier. Clarify.
7:30: Mild panic sets in. I’ve been up for two hours, and haven’t written a new word yet. Not sure what is supposed to happen next in my story. Unclear on main character’s motivation. Get another cup of coffee as stalling tactic.
7:45: Despair. Another day is leaking away, and I’m just not finding the groove. Still, I know that writing is 90% showing up, and here I am. Try to write a few paragraphs, but don’t like where it’s going. Trite. Predictable. Write ten paragraphs on how hard it is to write, and promise myself that I’ll come back to this later in the day when I’m more awake and inspired.
8:00: Time for a walk up the neighborhood mountain to reduce the bulge around my middle. I like these walks; they’re excellent thinking time. Halfway up the hill, have a revelation about some aspect of my novel, and begin to feel good about the writing process again.
10:00: Back from walk, invigorated. Showered, third cup in hand and ready to face day. Of course by now it’s time to get some “day job” chores out of the way. Spend the morning doing some design work and/or programming for a Web client.
Noon: Lunch!
1:00: More work for clients, and I’m feeling lucky to have it or we’d be living in a cardboard box on Burnside. Start thinking about the novel again, wondering if I’ll be able to get back to it later in the day.
2:30: So sleepy. I crash between two and four, biorhythms in the toilet. Can’t think. Remember that one of the only advantages of being self-employed is that I can knock off and lie down for twenty minutes without anyone yelling at me.
3:00: Wake up from a short nap feeling groggy again. Take another short walk around the neighborhood to wake up. Wrestle with the dog.
4:00: Feeling like myself again, I doodle on a notepad, sketching ideas for what might happen next in my novel. Wonder when I’ll have time to blog again. Dismiss the notion — the novel comes first, after all. Count how many days until my next writer’s group meeting, factoring how many pages I’ll need to write a day in order to have something respectable to present for review. Oh, that’s just depressing. Client sends urgent email: can I look into this problem and get back to him before closing time?
5:00: Dogs are dancing by my desk, begging to be fed.
6:00: Wife and I start plotting what we might do for dinner.
7:00: Actual dinner prep commences.
7:30: Eat, watch a little telly, try to reconnect with spouse I haven’t seen all day, even though we both work at home.
9:30: Getting sleepy. I was never much of a night person. Realize that if I went to bed right now, I’d have a chance of eight hours of sleep. Sleep, they say, is essential for weight loss. Weight loss means less snoring, avoiding apnea that will lead to heart disease, premature death.
10:00: Feeling bad for not having written much during the day. Vow that tomorrow will be different. Check email one last time.
10:30: Teeth brushed, lying down, novel perched in the air above my head. My mind wanders, thinking of what’s happening with my main character. Maybe if I go to sleep thinking of plotting problems, I’ll dream a solution. A wave of optimism hits me as I slip away into unconsciousness… tomorrow will be better… I’ll finally get a handle on my story… I’ll finish that chapter…
Repeat.
My hat is off to all of you who manage to blog and write novels amidst the maelstrom of a typical day. I never lose hope that all this will change, but that hope sometimes grows a little tarnished. So I put this to you: how do you do it? What’s your secret?
I can’t tell you how impressed I am that you make it all the way until 9:30 before considering premature death. If that wasn’t my primary preoccupation, I don’t know what I’d write about. Also, if you could include exactly what you prepare for dinner,that would help too.
This was so familiar it was painful. But it sounds like youa re on the right track. A lot of people recommend, and it has worked for me, is to write first thing,m before youa re fully awake, just knock out a few pages. Sometimes it helps to remind yourself youc an always throw it out if it sucks. BUt often I find it doesn’t. Speaking of not sucking, I have also niticed very littel difference in quality between when I am “inspired” and when I grind it out. Now it could be that I am bad all the time. But it could also mean the talent is always there, just do it.
And you may have left the ending off the quote, “90% of writing is showing up, on the page.”
Jerry Pornelle says, and Malcolm Gladwell confirms, that all it takes to be a good witer is to write a million words… after that, what you write may be OK.
Vaya con Dios, my friend.
@Tricia - Monday is crow night. Tomorrow, perhaps I’ll eat my words. Given the amount of writing I’ve done lately though, that’d be a strict diet, indeed.
@Dan - Thanks for the encouragement! After your comment, I did some quick math. Seems like I’ve written somewhere in the ballpark of 500-600,000 words since I decided to get serious about writing. That explains why I don’t like many of them just yet. Maybe it’s time to double-down on the writing.
No secret. I wrote my novel in 30 days during NaNoWriMo. During that time, I scaled back my workload a little, and also scaled back the number of posts I published. By working on it for about an hour to two hours a night, I was able to pass 50k words in one month.
Some writers, however, work much better when they spread a large project over a lengthier amount of time. For me, cranking it out was a better way to go because it was easier to stick with it.
And you don’t have to wait for (November) NaNoWriMo. You could do a novelling marathon any time you like!
Melissa, you clearly write a helluva lot faster than I do. I’m envious. Even with cutting my blog posts to nearly zero lately, I’ve still struggled to keep my novel on the rails. Gimme some of that go-juice!