Updates! Or finding the time pt2.

13 Thursday Oct 2011

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About two weeks ago, in this post https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/finding-the-time/, I talked about the pressures of modern life and how it is sometimes difficult to find the time to write when there are loads of other calls on an individual’s time. As a result of this post, I decided to test out a way of improving productivity. The rules were simple:

* 200 words a day minimum

* This included work on any writing project or submissions to guest blogs. It did not include any writing on forums, Facebook, Twitter, this blog or my own personal blog.

* Weekends were exempt from this and I was allowed to take an occasional holiday if there were special circumstances.

*Daily word counts had to be posted on Twitter under the #amwriting hashtag.

Well, today I am reporting that the experiment seems to have been a roaring success. I had two days off due to being in the Lake District without a laptop for the weekend (and so missed Friday and Monday’s counts due to travel) but other than that I have managed to exceed the minimum count on each day. Not only that, yesterday I completed a story that had been lurking on my hard drive for months with no progress and got it sent to a beta reader for assessment.

I think the key here is the low minimum word count. Now, every writer is different and therefore has different ideal working patterns. For some a high target word count may be beneficial – an impetus to strive for greater things. However, from what I have seen, it seems to be full time writers who follow that philosophy – those who not only have a pressing impetus already in the form of ‘do this or you don’t get paid’ but who also have more free time in which to achieve higher targets.* For part timers like myself, I am not so sure this approach is as useful. A too high a target in an environment with lots of other demands on your time might be off putting and lead to you not doing any writing at all in favour of the more important tasks. Psychologically, setting a low target has given me a series of easy wins, each one a boost to the ego and a spur to keep going. On days where the muse has struck or I have lots of free time, I have managed far more words than I even managed when I set higher targets and on my busiest recent days (including one where illness and an interview scuppered most of my free time) I still managed my 200 and therefore felt like I had achieved something.

I am therefore going to carry on with this method, starting with another project tomorrow and maybe some more guest blog entries. I am currently pondering what to write for a guest blog about horror. Succubi and aliens are currently clamouring at my brain’s door for attention.

*And, yes, I appreciate that even full time writers don’t have all the time they would like to spend writing because they also have editing, publicity, research and so on but many part timers have to do all that AND other things as well. 

Guest blogs

02 Sunday Oct 2011

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Just a short post this one to announce a couple of guest blog appearances I have made.

First off, a guest blog post of mine is now live on the site of the lovely Rebeka Harrington. It is entitled ‘Playing with the Big Girls’ and may be found here: http://rebekaharrington.com/2011/10/01/playing-with-the-big-girls/?blogsub=confirmed

Hoping to do some more guest posts there in the future and maybe have Rebeka post here by way of returning the favour.

Secondly, another guest post of mine is due to appear on the amwriting website (http://amwriting.org/), the blog site that is linked to the #amwriting hashtag on twitter. This post is not due until later this month (27th of October) but I will more than likely post out reminders closer to the time. This post is entitled ‘Feeling like a big, fat failure’ and I hope the title speaks for itself. If not, you will have to read it to find out what it means…

Finding the time

30 Friday Sep 2011

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It’s been a busy few weeks. A really busy few weeks.

I’ve had interviews for permanent work, calls from agencies about potential short term work, calls from tutoring clients about arranging appointments and this weekend was spent in a no signal zone in the middle of nowhere. Add to this the housework I am expected to do, the Crits that are essential for the writing group I am part of and all the publicity I have been pulling together for Pirates and Swashbucklers and it makes for some fairly busy days.

It occurred to me yesterday that, in the midst of all this, I hadn’t actually managed to do any writing at all. Not one word. Not a single creative act.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not short of ideas. I am swimming in many potentially fun ideas for writing projects. I also have several existing projects on the go which need some tender, loving care. These projects are sitting there on my hard drive, wailing plaintively at me and begging me to pay attention to them. The trouble is that I have little time left in my day to do any actual writing and, quite often, by the time I do manage to sit down and think ‘I can do some writing now’ I am too tired for it to be any use.

It seems to be a common problem. I know that several writers have expressed similar sentiments, even successfully published ones. John Scalzi (http://whatever.scalzi.com/), for example, frequently posts about how his internet usage often interferes with his writing and how he occasionally imposes a ‘no internet until X words have been written’ rule to prevent unnecessary prevarication.

So, the question here is obvious. How can this situation be changed? I’m not a full time writer. Like many out there who haven’t hit the big time, I need to work to pay the bills and put food in my mouth. Well, at least contribute to household expenses (one of the benefits of marriage: shared household expenses 🙂 ). I also like working (and not just because the people you meet are a great source of ideas for characters) because it adds a certain amount of routine to my life. I also like living in a house that is clean, have clothes that have been laundered, eat food that has been lovingly prepared and cooked and a garden that is not auditioning for the location of a Tarzan film. Getting these things done takes time, time I feel I could be writing.

So, I have made a decision. I am going to attempt to set a target. It seems to be a common method to beat this problem so I am going to see if it works for me. Because I know my personal schedule is very chaotic and I can’t be sure how much ‘writing’ time I am going to get each day, I am going to set my personal target as very low – 200 words a day. This may seem laughable compared to targets ranging from 500 to 2000 words from some writers but I see this as a way to encourage daily writing rather than the occasional flashes of it I do currently. Given that on one of these rare writing sprees I managed more than 800 words in a short space of time and that was the only serious writing I did all week I think 200 a day will easily beat that. It’s an easy target to reach, I will more than likely (I hope) beat it every day by at least a few hundred words and there is less chance of failing this on the really busy days.

There will be conditions, of course. Weekends are exempt, but I may use them to catch up on work if I miss any days during the week Also, I am considering any guest blog posts I write to count towards the daily word count. These blog posts don’t count but anything written to be published elsewhere does.

I am starting this as of today and will be reporting my word counts on #amwriting on Twitter if you want to keep track.

Finally: If you are a writer, what techniques do you use to improve your productivity? Any other ideas out there which can be shared? Feel free to comment below…

Scary things you never expect

21 Wednesday Sep 2011

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I always thought that I had a good level of sang froid. That I could be cool and collected under the most stressful conditions. I’ve been a first aider and dealt with injuries at events, I’ve been part of a thin line of people holding back a rowdy crowd at a music concert, I’ve stood in front of a class of children who were throwing insults at me. I’ve done all these things and never let it show that I was affected. It was once said of me that I had a limitless supply of calm (I keep it in my pocket, I have rather large pockets).

I’ve also been involved in writing for a good few years and talked to professional published writers and therefore learnt a thing or two about what it is like to be a writer – getting that first publication, seeing your book in print and all of that cool stuff.

However, talking about it and experiencing it are two entirely different things.

What scared the hell out of me recently were two things. The first was seeing the copyright and contents pages for Pirates and Swashbucklers. There it was, my name, in black and white with a little (c) next to it and later in the contents page next to the title of my story. I am not aware of any writer ever describing how that felt or even having the skill to be able to accurately describe it. A cross between joy and abject terror is the way I would put it with an added touch of relief that there was finally proof that things were happening – publication was no longer a distant pipe dream, no longer an abstract agreement between publisher and writer that someday there will be a book in print, it was here and now in the real world. However, that description can never do the feeling justice. Let me add to it that I could not help but go squee when I saw it and have since thanked all the gods I could think of that there was no one within earshot and thus my reputation is safe.

However, fate had more in store for me. Yesterday there was a request on my Facebook page for a UK release of Pirates and Swashbucklers. Understandable, I am from the UK and many of the people who might want to read it are also from the UK. However, in its present form, the book is only going out to US customers. As a result of this request, I decided to pop onto Amazon UK to see what happened if I did a search for the book. This where I got my second scary surprise: there was a listing on Amazon UK for the kindle edition! And there was a listing, again with my name on it, on the Amazon webpage where anyone can read it and buy it (and review it… *gulp*)!

So, with my reputation as a cool, no nonsense, doesn’t care what is said about him type of guy now totally in tatters due to me announcing my fanboyish squeeing on a public blog, I have to ask the question: what other scary surprises are waiting for me out there? What scary surprises have other people had? Feel free to share any here…

Oh, and by the way, apparently the international release of the anthology will happen. So, people in the UK who don’t have Kindles will be able to get hold of a real live paper edition soon. It just takes a few weeks for things to work through the system. I will announce it as soon as it appears….

New Beginnings

18 Sunday Sep 2011

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It has been said to me again and again that I needed to get a blog. “You have to get a blog,” they tell me. “You need to tell the world about your writing!”

“But I have a Live Journal account, why would I need more than that?”

“But all you talk about on there is personal stuff like how terrible it is to be a teacher, cute things your dog does and why it sucks to have Diabetes. We want to hear about your writing!”

At which point my usual excuse of “What writing?” would be employed because, being honest with myself, I was not a ‘writer’ by any definition of the word other than the one which is ‘someone who writes’. I had no publications (well, apart from a couple of research papers and a thesis but who wants to read them?) and was not really serious about this whole writing lark. It was simply something I did to pass the time, a way of exorcising the demons that lurked in my head and insisted on playing out little dramas to taunt and amuse me while I suffered insomnia.

This year everything changed and my traditional excuse was washed away because I got a publication. In fact I got two. So now I am in the position of being an actual published writer. Or rather, I will be as of the 19th of September.

On this day, which is conveniently Talk Like a Pirate Day, an anthology of short stories will be released by Pulp Empires (http://pulpempire.com/) called ‘Pirates and Swashbucklers’. The coincidence is so massive you would almost think we had planned it this way. A short story I penned called ‘Gods of the Sea’ is in there. I am therefore now doomed to have to write about my experiences as a writer, the writing process and other things while also letting you all know that you can now buy this anthology by clicking the link on the publisher website. You can also read interviews with the writers of this anthology here: http://www.pensandswords.com/2011/08/29/pirates-and-swashbucklers-interview-with-d-a/ –

So, there you have it. As of tomorrow there may be readers out there who will have read Gods of the Sea. There may even be those who liked it. I hope you do because I had great fun writing it.

However, this publication is nothing to the news in an e-mail that landed in my inbox a few weeks after I got the acceptance for Gods of the Sea. That was the news that my paranormal romance novella, Transitions, was being published. The story behind that is something I feel requires a whole blog post to itself…