I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m going to do NaNo next month. Two jobs ago, I never had a problem finding time to write. I went to work and during my lunch hour or down time, I typed stuff out. Working at home kind of killed that for me. I got tied to my laptop and Blackberry and couldn’t pull my gaze away from work, even after hours.
Not that there technically were after-hours. Three months later I’m only just recovering from emergency in the middle of the night syndrome. And this isn’t like a doctor or something being on call. This is like working with insomniacs that expect people to be awake when they are and answer their e-mails at 1 am. But…different rant for a different blog ^_^
Anyway…I’ve had a hard time getting back into the habit of writing again now that I have free time again. And I’ve been trying to figure out how I’m going to motivate/force myself to do this. And then on the way to work I had a thought, and when I stumbled on this blog post, I decided I must be on the right track.
My brilliant idea/decision? Well…I wake up early most mornings. Not like uber early, but I’m usually up before six. I don’t have to be to work until 7:30 or 8. You might think that’s not a lot of time, but I don’t have kids. I don’t have to get anyone ready for work except me. I have to refill the food and water bowls for the cats and make coffee. Work is ten minutes away.
That means I can spend up to an hour just sitting around staring into space each morning. I disguise this by refreshing Facebook and Twitter every thirty seconds, and playing solitaire. I call it my ‘wake up’ time.
It might be a perfect time to write, except…did I mention the website refreshes? My solution. Instead of sitting around in a daze for an hour every morning, I’m going to get off my butt, drag my laptop to the coffee shop, and write for that hour. If you’re thinking “But most coffee shops have wi-fi, not exactly a media fast” – I have that bit figured out. I’m too cheap to pay for wi-fi ^_^ So I just won’t go somewhere that it’s free.
I have my headphones, my laptop, and my Open Office…and I’ll write my new shiny out. Maybe I’ll even start doing the same thing during lunch breaks.
How do you find the time and space to focus when you need isolation in order to write? Or are you one of those fortunate few who can write regardless of surrounding?
Time to write: 4:30AM-6:15AM
Wake up kids, get them to school, head to work an hour away.
Place to write: Closet
Because the new baby’s room takes up the old office space.
Isolation? Check. Silence? Check. Coffee? Check and double-check. Fingers too numb to type most mornings? Cheknwe.
– Eric
I don’t have a job anymore. When I worked at the elementary school, the short few months, I worked on my sekrit novel during lunch because it’s a hand written one. I would have my journal and try to eat while writing. Wouldn’t get much, just half a page to a page (150 average word count for a page) but it was more than nothing. Was a little odd writing a novel in front of elementary teachers, some were my teachers when I went to school there.
I went to coffeeshops when I won nanowrimo in 2008. But I used their internet, didn’t have any at the new house/apartment. I listen to playlists using youtube and sometimes write in book formats on writing.com. Sure, I have a copy using Word, textedit or another writing program. But I like having the online version too. Even when I wrote the 50k in 15 days this year, I was on twitter and such while doing that writing. I’m obsessed with the internet, so I just make it work.
I do find I write more when I don’t have tv. Hard at mom’s house cause I write in the tv room, using a tv tray to hold my laptop. But I might make up space in the old office room and write there for november. That and the door stays closed so I won’t have cats bothering me and I can use both the laptop and netbook for music, writing, etc. I can write anywhere, out of necessity, but it’s nice to have a specific place to write.