On Monday, August 31, I worked for about twenty minutes. This was very big news because it was the first time I'd worked in over two weeks. The closest thing to working I've done since then was making some notes for one of my 365 Story Project characters. This happened yesterday while I was reading a yoga article in a hospital cafeteria while waiting for some radioactive material to make its way to a family member's foot so she could have a bone scan.
So when I stumbled upon Write Everyday, a tool at Procrastinating Writers, I thought I would give it a try. It's supposed to allow you to set a clock for a specific number of minutes and then write until an alarm goes off. The first time I tried it, I did something wrong. I started a short story I've been thinking about (on the subject of buying potato chips in a hospital cafeteria, if you must know), so that's a good thing. But it never counted down the number of minutes or did anything at all.
When I reset it and tried again, it did work, even giving me a writing prompt. I hate writing prompts, as it turns out, but I do like the idea of time writing. So I may try this again and just ignore the prompt and go back to my potato chip story. Which I have now started even though it's Saturday night, and I never work on Saturday nights.
Cory Doctorow wrote an article (can't remember where, sorry) about writing solely for twenty minutes a day -- internet off, phone off, curtains closed -- and says that most writers only do about that per day anyway. If you do it honestly -- not giving yourself breaks to check email or even fact-check with books or the internet, you can allegedly get a lot done.
ReplyDeleteHope it works for you. I've had two weeks of "meh" writing, and I'm going to try it, just to get back into the saddle.