Write Every Day, Day #6

[auroracloud]

Ugh, I've been terribly tired all day. Probably because I woke up wayyyy too early and took ages to fall asleep, then the alarm went off just as I was sleeping comfortably. As a result it's been a bit hard to get things done, and I ended up getting to writing way too late again, and uninspired. I need to figure out a way to set a writing routine into days when I'm also Doing Productive Non-Household Things. Well, it should be easier on days when I don't have a webinar starting at I Just Finished Putting Together My Breakfast And Steeping My Tea o'clock. I mean, it was a good webinar and I'd signed up for it myself, so I'm not complaining, but it did mean I didn't have time to try writing in the morning.

I've already discussed this with some of you in the comments, but for anyone who wants to chime in: Do you have a particular daily routine for when/where/how you write? Or any other ways to ensure that you get your writing done at a time when your brain feels like producing words and so forth?

For me it's usually worked the best if I write the first thing in the morning after breakfast. Even if I don't do all of the day's writing then, it's the best time to get in at least some writing.

A tip I once read somewhere - a blog, a writing book, can't remember: "Always schedule writing first." With the clarification that it doesn't have to be the first thing on your schedule, but you should try to decide first when you're going to write, and then plan the other things. Rather than doing what we often do and squeezing it in wherever it fits - or doesn't fit - when you've already filled your day with activities and there isn't really any productive time left for writing because we prioritized everything else. Of course we all have duties, but those tend to get their time slot anyway because there's some kind of pressure to do so. With writing there often isn't anyone but ourselves to remind us to write, so it's easy to give it the last priority, and then it's hard to find the time and energy for writing.

Today's Writing

I mostly just spent time signing up for genprompt_bingo as well as staring at prompts from other challenges. I also put together a list of femslash pairings I like so that when there are prompts in femslash_ficlets, I have somewhere to look if I suddenly can't remember at all which pairings I like. (It happens sometimes. My brain isn't always great at retrieving stuff that's in there.) But I did add some words and make minor edits to a nearly-finished ficlet.

(By the way, does anyone else's browser keep insisting on correcting the word 'ficlet' into 'fillet'? I should probably add 'ficlet' to my computer's vocabulary...)


Tally


Day 1: alexcat, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, deifire, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme

Day 2: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, china_shop, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, deifire, elliet, falkner, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme

Day 3: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, falkner, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, silveradept, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, yasaman

Day 4: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, lferion, luzula, nafs, sakana17, sanguinity, shadaras, silveradept, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme

Day 5: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, falkner, lferion, luzula, nafs, sakana17, sanguinity, shadaras, silveradept, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, yasaman

Day 6: auroracloud, china_shop

Let me know if I missed you on the tally, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet! You can join in and drop out any time.

Comments

[luzula]

Before the social isolation, I often wrote on the tram on the way to and from work. That's a solid half hour each way, and since I didn't have any internet there was nothing much distracting me. But now when I'm at home, I often write in the evening, though I'm not sure that's actually the best routine. Maybe I'll try writing in the morning and see if it's better...

Today's wordcount: 500
Total wordcount on fic: 3000

[auroracloud]

The isolation seems to have messed with many people's routines, understandably. Good luck figuring out yours!

Sounds like a good bit of writing for the day. :-)

[badly_knitted]

I tend to do my writing between noon and 2 pm at the moment, but that's because I'm trying to get out into the garden in the afternoon. Otherwise I'll write until around 3.30. Writing early in the morning doesn't work well for me because my brain takes its own sweet time coming online. I'm not a morning person.

April 6th - 979 words, a drabble, 4 double drabbles, and a tiny bit of editing. I finished and posted the challenge fic I started a few days ago!

[auroracloud]

I totally get not being a morning person - I'm not incredibly much one, I wake up very slowly and can take quite a while getting started, but once I am awake (and have had my tea) I get stuff done better in the morning than I do almost any other time of the day. I'm pretty bad with afternoons - I perk up again in the evening until I start getting sleepy.

Sounds like you got a lot of writing done! Yay for finishing and posting the challenge fic. :-)

[badly_knitted]

I'm better in the afternoon and evening, except in winter when I tend to nod off over my computer. It makes posting a bit difficult because I keep forgetting what I'm doing. Haven't fallen off my desk chair yet though...

[sylvanwitch]

Today was a teaching day, and those are always long, no matter how little or much time I spend actually with my classes online. I did get out for a walk in the glorious sunshine today, though, but I'm beat, so I only managed 572 words on the Bond/Q fic. Still, those words brought me to the Big Revelation, so that's good. Plot progress! Who'd have thought? Lol!

[auroracloud]

Glad you managed to get some outside time and sunshine despite the long day! I know there's a lot more to a teacher's job than just the classes themselves, and I imagine even more now that you have to prepare for different kinds of classes, exercises etc. And hey, that's a lot of words especially for a busy day! In particular if you got to a Big Revelation in those words!

[deifire]

My current writing schedule is...well, It's not great that I've been waking up super early without being able to get back to sleep, but I have been able to take advantage of that fact to get some writing done before my day really gets started.

Today's word count: 283

[auroracloud]

I'm sorry you've been waking up too early, I've had the same problem at times, though I haven't actually managed to make myself use it to writing... But it's good, at least that you get some writing uses out of it, even if it's not so great otherwise.

[sanguinity]

April 6: Transcription, a little editing. Considering throwing it all in the bin and starting over AGAIN.


I absolutely schedule writing first. Sometimes I fuck up and sleep through my writing time (this morning!), but when I'm arranging my schedule, I routinely optimize it to facilitate a good writing session, as much as the no-flexibility items allow me to do so.

[auroracloud]

I know the feeling, re: wanting to throw everything in the bin and starting over. Good luck figuring out what the best solution is in this case!

That's great, that you manage to hold onto scheduling writing first. I'm trying to get back to that habit, as I've fallen out of it and it works out much better for me than not doing it.

[nafs]

I usually write in the evening and I am very much guilty of seldom scheduling writing first. Today's evening schedule got disrupted so all I had time for was typing up yesterday's work (555 words, some of which got added/removed as I typed) and then moving it into the hole in the main document, with a couple of tweaks.

[auroracloud]

Sorry your schedule got disrupted, glad you got some work done at least, even if it wasn't as much as you hoped.

[sierranovembr]

I managed to write today. Not anything fun, just a procedure for work, but it's words and I am desperate.

[auroracloud]

Well, writing something is a start - hope you can soon find the time/energy/anything else you need to write things you want to write. *sympathy*

[alexseanchai]

if I move one PoV character and companions' arrival at the bakery from 12.1 to 12.3 and have them bring with them the person they're rescuing in the scene I'm on, and swap the subject matter of those two scenes, so that the rescuee is who talks about events she was personally involved with—rather than the rescuee going offscreen at the end of this scene and staying there for several scenes, and the PoV character hearing about those events from someone at a remove—this is going to be a stronger story, isn't it

[auroracloud]

Sounds good to me!

[lferion]

Day 6 - managed a drabble about socks, of all things, probably part of set, not actually a stand-alone. Though I haven't a clue what the rest of the set might be. It will tell me or it won't. Hopefully will.

[auroracloud]

Writing is writing, and maybe it will become a part of something bigger, and if it doesn't it still serves as practice, and as a way to be accustomed to getting words out. :-) And socks are nice!

[yasaman]

I feel you on being tired today. I had a bad night's sleep, thanks to a storm moving in overnight. I love the rain, but the storm noise kept waking me up off and on last night, and I feel like I didn't get a proper uninterrupted stretch of sleep all night. Blah.

Day 6: just 150 words tonight, on account of aforementioned tiredness.

[auroracloud]

Sorry you had a bad night's sleep, too! We've had a lot of storms and strong winds all through these first months of 2020. I mean, probably nothing as bad as what people in actually-extreme-weather locations get (Finland tends to be pretty non-extreme about weather, except when it happens to get cold), but still enough to make a lot of noise.

Getting some writing done on a tired day is very good!

[silveradept]

Finished another post into my queue of things. Perhaps tomorrow I will go back to work on fic things. I still have something that needs a lot of work to get through.

[auroracloud]

Sounds good, good luck with fic things if you go back to them now!

[china_shop]

7th: I wrote today. Not much more than an alibi sentence, but something. :-)

With writing there often isn't anyone but ourselves to remind us to write, so it's easy to give it the last priority, and then it's hard to find the time and energy for writing.

That's an excellent point! <3

[auroracloud]

Something is better than nothing! The important part is at least trying enough to get some words on the page. *waves pom-poms, albeit a little sleepily*

[shadaras]

I spent the 6th (now yesterday for me) enjoying sunshine and snuggles and making food and therefore pretty much just wrote an alibi sentence worth of stuff. But the day itself was nice (and needed), so I don't think that's a bad thing at all.

[auroracloud]

Mmm, those all sound like very good things to enjoy! It's quite understandable that sometimes writing has to take a back seat, and that sounds like the kind of day that's good for you in many ways. :-)

[carenejeans]

Day 6: More work on the nonfiction project.

Mornings are the best time for me to write, but lately my mornings are mostly taken up. The other time that's good for me is late in the evening (into the wee hours). But since I have to do things in the mornings, that's not good either! So I'm sort of flailing.

Luckily, the nonfiction project, being so piecemeal, is easy to do whenever I have a small block of time. It's like working on a patchwork quilt or something... ;-)

[auroracloud]

Yeah, the problem with writing very late is that then it gets hard to get enough sleep if you have things to do in the morning. I also have a bit of a hard time figuring out scheduling when basically mornings are the best time for everything, but also I take quite a while to wake up properly in the morning, and anyway I can't do everything in the morning...

Glad the nonfiction project at least lends itself to piecemeal working!