Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Forcing it?

Sometimes it doesn't matter what you write just as long as you write. Forcing something down on paper/keyboard can be liberating. Sometimes.
Other times its torture.
I have several books completed, but not ready for public viewing. Some are shorter, but still book length but there's a few that are huge. When I can't wrap my brain around anything new I go back and play in these books. There are a few that I really like and would love to see them all polished up for Amazon, but for some reason I procrastinate. I believe this is some kind of phobia. If I finish them I'll put them up on Amazon and God forbid someone hates them! Crushing!
And then there's all these new stories in my head that keep nagging at me.
The full time job really gets in my way.
I have a really boring job and actually have time to work on my stories there, but its a room full of cubes and everyone can see each other. Just when I'm in the zone and going good someone demands my attention. Its like walking out of a cloud. Suddenly I'm not miles into my story but being yanked back into the cube-world. (I hate cube world) I did try to use head phones but the others objected because I didn't jump when they wanted my attention. Even if it wasn't about work--all summer long we do NOTHING--they were still offended that I would zone out on them. Heaven forbid I miss the building's gossip!
So now my writing time is either early morning, before work or after work or at night. Morning is when I do my best writing but sometimes I get so pulled into the story I lose all track of time and end up being late for work...where I'll sit in a cube and do nothing for hours. After work is better but there's dinner to make, family to talk to and dogs to walk. I usually practice piano after work too. Sometimes there's meetings.
I admire Zoe Winters who sets word count goals and meets them. Maybe that's what I should do. Page or word goals to get the job done.
Any other goal setting ideas? How do you get it done?

2 comments:

Tobi Summers said...

I set word count goals. Normally it's 1000 words/weekday (though I toned it down this month so I could make time for some editing). I find that's not so difficult that I can't do it in an hour or so after work, but it's enough to keep me moving on a story. But I make it a general writing goal (non-story-specific) so that if I'm stuck on something one day, I can work on a different project instead of imploding (which I'm liable to do).

Good luck!

Charles Gramlich said...

It sounds to me less as if you don't produce material, but more that you don't want to show it. I'm actually a slow writer but most everything I produce goes in front of a potential audience at some point. Some I target for particular markets. Others I write and then decide on the market. Today, for me, for some things, that means self-publishing. If no one can see it to hate it, no one can see it to love it either! :)

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