According to this calendar, all my tasks are done by late 2012 ..
My ability and willpower to get my NaNoWriMo writing done seems to vary a lot during the week. In fact, it’s particularly strong on …
Saturday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
… and pretty piss-poor on …
Sunday, Monday, Friday
There’s a reason for this.
Tuesday and Thursday we have karate. I bring my netbook to the rec center with Katherine, and while she’s doing the Karate Kid routine, I’m writing. It’s an available time, regularly recurring, and so I’ve set the hour or so aside for that. (I usually have to work another hour when I get home, but that’s okay.)
Wednesday is the NaNo Write-In at Panera Bread in Lone Tree. 6 pm we show up, I grab some soup and a baguette and a coffee, and I start to write. Two hours, in a lounge area, set aside on a regular basis. No worries.
Saturday is the NaNo Write-In at the Tattered Cover in Highlands Ranch. 3 pm we show up, I grab a coffee, sit on a couch or a wing-back chair with the others, and I start to write. Two hours, hanging out, set aside on a regular basis. No worries.
You probably see what I’m driving at.
There's always something else important to do.
I will not universalize this, because I know that in so many things I am an oddball. But it seems clear to me that one way that I do things, successfully, is by making a habit of setting a time to do them. I need, and therefore set up, the structure, both in time and space. At time X I will be in place Y and do some writing.
And when that doesn’t happen — when it’s sort of, “I’m done with work, I have the afternoon, or maybe tonight, to get some writing done” … it is much less likely to happen. There’s always something to do, something I’d rather do, something I’ve gotta do.
I’m a creature of habit. I can fight against that, or I can use it. Which is what I’ve done here, leveraging Tuesday/Thursday karate and the Wednesday/Saturday Write-Ins to set that time aside.
The challenge, of course, is what happens after NaNoWriMo is over — when both the external pressure to hit a word count, the sense of a time-constrained mad dash, and some of that habitual infrastructure all go away. If I want to keep writing, at some scale …
… what will I do then?
(I do know the answer, or what the answer should be. The question is, will I do it?)
I think the answer, at least in part, is: “We need to get a writer’s group started.”
Peer review, feedback, and delivery deadlines to hit.
Corollary to this (at least for me), some other extracurricular needs to take a hit to make room for this.
I have to confess that my experience with this, and a couple of other similar activities, has been leading me toward some sort of a writers group solution.
In addition to “habit” of time and space, I respond well (or better, at least) to deadlines.
Oh yeah: deadlines are critical for me — it’s the main reason I don’t get very far ahead on the baseline NaNoWriMo wordcount, even though could — if I get more than a few hundred words ahead, the pressure comes off, and I don’t write.
See, I manage to get ahead — by being lazy and aiming for 2,000 rather than 1,667. After five days, I’m a day ahead. (At which point, I suddenly lapse …)
Need to build a bit of a buffer for next week, since I don’t see Thursday or Friday being conducive to writing.
Suggest treating “writers’ group” like a game day. Show up by X time with Y words every week, which you have to have sent out for review by Z day.
Also, scheduling < scheduling, with snacks.
A ha. See: you do this. I need to pick your brain on the actual particulars of what happens at these things. I’ve never been, and I have only vague impressions of what goes down.
I’d be interested in hearing the gory details as well.
I believe we will all be in the same room next Thursday …
Well, okay, but it’s pretty much dead simple:
1) Pick when/where and how much.
A note – I have better luck with groups that meet in a public place where food and drink can be obtained with money than in a private home; it’s easier to get out of the house than it is to make sure whoever’s hosting it doesn’t give up on it because the house it not clean. However, I mainly don’t write with gamers, who are by nature accustomed to having people over, no matter what.
2) At a previously agreed-upon time before the meeting, send out the material to be reviewed. This is more to guarantee that you get stuff done than that useful comments are obtained; those are a bonus.
3) Reviewees print and comment.
4) Everybody brings stuff to meeting.
5) Discuss. Generally best to preface comments with, “I’m working on X in my own writing, so I decided to pick apart your stuff with regards to X, since I’m too close to my own work to see it.” Both true and tactful, as it mostly turns out.
6) Revising to accommodate other people’s comments does not count toward your next week’s stuff unless you mutually agree that it does.
7) Everybody’s stuff gets reviewed. Mockery ensures for all participants who have not provided an adequate amount of material. General writerly blather about various stories may follow, but nobody leaves until everybody’s stuff is done (I’ve had this happen before; lame lame lame).
The end.
Oh yeah – if nobody has anything ready, you still have to show up and make fun of each other.
I will be happy to support you all with the <with snacks part of the equation. Which of course satisfies my creative urges 🙂
“My wife … I think I’ll keep her.”
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Well, that certainly sounds like a reasonable, rational, positive way of doing this sort of thing.
So … cat … belling …