First let’s start with an ideal day.
5:30 am Rise and rush to the keyboard brimming with ideas and write 1000 words before breakfast
7:30 am Take the dog for a walk and celebrate the beautiful day
8 ish Eat breakfast, spend time in The Word
8:45 am Check emails with lightning speed and post a wildly happy post to Facebook because I’ve practically already met my writing target for the day (if I’m not writing two books at the same time and horribly behind schedule)
9:00 am Reread what I wrote before breakfast and not think it’s horrible
9:30 am Write, write, write…words flying from my fingertips onto the screen. Okay, I did start by saying this was an ideal writing day… the kind I haven’t had since before I learned how a publishable novel is “supposed” to be crafted. Before I learned all those “rules” of how to write a good story. Before I had an email inbox the size of Mount Everest.
Enough said. Let’s move on to a typical day.
6:30 am Wake up a little bleary-eyed because I foolishly stayed up reading until midnight or 1 am, but after going to the bathroom decide that since I’m awake I might as well stay up. If I’m smart and self-disciplined, I don’t check emails, but turn on a software screen called Omni which features a blank screen except for a few barren trees along the bottom and soft music in the background.
Then I write my next scene, or if I haven’t figured out what happens in my next scene, I write about what needs to happen. On wonderful days, I can write about 750 words before the rest of the household begins to stir.
Things fall apart from there!
Most days the dog does get her walk. Emails usually take much longer to read and respond to. Then of course, if my characters aren’t cooperating and the words just aren’t flowing as they should…
You know what, there is no such thing as a typical day. I write at all hours. My most creative and productive times are usually later in the evening.
I tend to devote afternoons to editing or responding to the art department’s questions or reader’s questions or interviewer questions or the myriad of marketing-related tasks that go along with being published.
And most days I love it all.
Some days I wonder why I torture myself. Okay, during the first draft stage, I tend to have a lot of those days. LOL
But the days when words fly from my fingerprints and tidbits that I threw into the story on a whim suddenly and serendipitously tie together, are pure bliss.
Your Turn: What makes routine day special for you?
Image courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
RSS - Posts
