Last week was a definite success. I feel like I accomplished a great deal on my goals–more than I expected, for sure. On the other hand, I woke up Sunday morning (which is the beginning of my weekend), and realized that I was somehow behind on my freelance work. On my “days off” (Sunday and Monday), I ended up playing catch-up, trying to right myself back on track. This is an odd experience, and I’m not sure whether it’s because I just had way too much freelance work for the week last week, or the early-day focus on creative stuff drained enough brain energy that I didn’t tackle my freelance work with my usual speed.
Another thing that happened was a birthday party and a brunch, both of which featured a number of writers and we did the inevitable–talked about writing. (You know, I was always amazed at people who worked in a field and then got together after work and talked about…their field! And, yet, my favorite topic is writing. So, I’m guilty as the rest of them). Anyway, there was a lot of great conversation about how we all work, whether we bounce from project to project in a day and an hour (me) or immerse ourselves in one thing until it’s complete (many other writers I know). It’s so interesting to see how other writers do their work, and to incorporate the parts that might work for you.
Lastly, my brain is brimming with short creative erotic ideas that have nowhere to go. If I’m not writing them, what do I do with them? Even last night at my pole-dancing class, we were talking about what’s sensual–and some of the things, I don’t want to forget them. They were so incredibly sensual and unusual and I could feel the stories bubbling up even as we were talking. Keeping a lid on that instinct feels odd and wrong, but I think, as it’s only temporary, that the pressure will keep building, forcing me to get enough done on the novel that I can get back to the shorts.
As to the plan for this week, it’s more of the same. I’m going to keep a close eye on my freelance time and energy. I have a lot of projects on my plate right now: Roast editing and writing (magazine); Greenopia proofing (book); Save Your Hands copy editing (book); Portrait of Portland writing (magazine); For His Eyes Only writing (book section). It’s more stuff than I usually take on at one time, but some of it has rolled over from last year due to parts of the book not coming in from the writers and things like that.
So, with that in mind, just for this week, I’m at 7 hours of daily writing time, plus one or two hours of meetings, etc. The creative shorts got cut for the week (!) and the novel only gets half an hour a day. I’m hoping that will allow me to play catch up and then move back into a more creative focus for next week.
- 1/2 hour proposals
- 1/2 hour novel
- 1 hour email (no more)
- 4 hours freelance writing
I don’t know about you, Shanna, but when a spark of inspiration hits me, I have to deal with it some how or it sits there, distracting me. I have loads of spiral and loose leaf notebooks around where I write down rogue ideas. When I feel like I’m drying up creatively, I refer back to them. I try to keep the descriptions of the ideas down to their simplest form, not trying to write creatively or completely. Devote no more than five or ten minutes to outlining the idea.
Just render the idea much like a simple line drawing in a sketchbook. I can always refer back to the sketch (brief description) and render it into an oil painting (polished story) some time later.
That way, the idea has been given some attention, and it will leave me alone to deal with the project I am really entrenched in.
Craig
Oh, Craig, that’s a great system. I’m such a computer geek that I hardly ever even carry paper anymore. I do everything on my laptop. Which probably isn’t a good thing, when it comes to creativity.
It seems like if I can keep the ideas bouncing around in my head for a while, they become something better and stronger. And then I can sit down and put them into a story…
Having the idea bounce around in my head is certainly a key part of the process too. Knowing when the idea is more than just a passing thought, and is worthy of being a written, or when the idea “makes sense” as a story.
Some ideas just never gel, and some are like an immature red wine, loads of promise but not that pleasant to the tongue right now.