Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Finding Time to Tell a Story!!

I'm in the middle of house repairs, trying to get my place ready to sell, trying to find a job, teaching online classes, trying to promote, write a new book, and do edits for publishers on three others.

So when is there time to write??? :)

No matter how much is going on in my life, I try to write. I had to take my mother to the emergency room a little while ago and we were there for 5 hours. I couldn't concentrate to write, but I read a book I had to review, and that night, finished it and wrote the review. It was one of the "have to do" priorities that keep stacking up, but it's also a promotional effort. The workmen are here today again, and they've asked me questions innumerable times, but I snatched a couple of hours of writing time before they arrived. Once I'm done with some blog posts, I'm writing. If my mother doesn't show up to talk again. LOL

At night, I write in bed for a while. Oftentimes making up for all the distractions that are taking me away from my writing during the day. If I don't have workmen here, sometimes I'll go to my bedroom and write by long hand there. I can often get a lot more written that way if I don't look at the Internet all day long. Granted, I use it for research. I just used it for looking up pictures for the Fourth of July blog I did for Wickedly Romantic tomorrow. And I was researching more about Arctic tents and Arctic clothing for Allure of the Wolf. But what about all the emails??? Yep, they're a distraction.

I remember reading how one writer said she used to watch just her favorite show, then she got hooked on another and another, until she was watching tv all day long and not getting anywhere.

Sometimes just seeing how much time we're wasting on unproductive stuff can help us to overcome our lack of time to write. One writer said she gave up her full time job for a part time job so she could write more, and ended up filling the time with more stuff. When she quit the part time job, she found she still didn't have enough time to write. :)

It's all in time management. Forcing oneself to accomplish so much in a day. I have a sheet that shows how many words I've done today--and what I do is just calculate it in 1000's, so I wrote 1100 yesterday, I mark it as 1000. Today, I wrote a 1000, but plan to do another. In reality, I wrote 750, because yesterday I was at 54250. I can go over, but not under. :) So I have to make the 1000 mark before I go to bed at night, and often write more to make another 500 or more. :) And before I know it, the book is done. Now, I couldn't write for 4 days because of all this stuff with the house, realtors, etc, but the last two days I'm back at it. And I post it on Facebook and Bebo, which makes me feel good. I've told the world! I'm now at 56K, and I want to keep going.

So cut out the time wasters and you can find time to write too. :)

Terry Spear
Relative Danger
Terry Lee Wilde
Deidre's Secret

1 comment:

Julie Darcy said...

I really like what you wrote about life getting in the way of writing. Sometimes I make excuses why not to write. Or just say to myself, I will just do this other thing for about half-hour, and end up doing it for three hours. I liked what you said about time management and about the 1000words.