What follows really is "A day in the life..."
Some of you have noticed
that this blog post is “a week late.” My wife and I were visiting my son and
his family (including my adorable granddaughter) in Wisconsin. Besides not
having a lot of time, they live in the far north of the state and Internet
access is, well, inconsistent.
But, I’m back in San Diego
now.
I have three kinds of
“days” in my life.
1.
No writing
days. While not common, these do
exist. The schedule for these days varies and is unimportant to today’s topic.
2.
Some
writing days. On these days, my
writing time is restricted to either morning or afternoon. This schedule is
always based on other activities: doctors, financial planners, family
responsibilities.
On some writing days, I
either write in the morning or afternoon. Since the times I do write are
structured as on my third type of day, read on for specifics.
3.
Writing
days. I try to being writing
before 8:00 AM. Since I’m always up before 0600, I have time for walking the
dogs, devotions, and breakfast/newspaper before I dive into the process. Regardless of which of the two schedules
provided below I’m following, I always
take a break around noon to exercise and have a light lunch.
A.
If I’m
writing new storyline. New stories
kind of come out without much urging or control. So, I might write for an
extended time, 2-3 hours, without stopping because I want to get as much as I
can down and saved before it evaporates. Eventually, by the end of one of these
days, I might have put in 8-10 hours of writing. My best production that I’ve
documented is 6000 words on one of these days. I almost always stop by 7:00 PM,
but do run as late as 9:30 on occasion—a night owl I am not!
B.
If I’m
editing. This is my most highly
structured type of day. Editing is a laborious process. I wrote about some of
that process in an earlier blog, Quick Tip: Be aware of what one word can
help you do, and will expand in a future blog, 10 More
Editing Ideas to Make Your Revisions Less Revolting. Suffice it to say that I take more frequent
breaks when I’m editing.
i.
First
reason for more breaks. It’s just
hard work. After all, you have to cut off part of yourself when you edit. I
mean, you wrote what you wrote and thought it was good enough to keep. And, if
you’re working on a second or third revision, you’ve already agonized a lot
over the prose before. I get up and wander about once an hour, on final edit
days.
ii.
Last reason
for more breaks. They help keep my
outlook fresh. Unless I move around and get the blood flowing through my
cerebral cortex, I miss items that should have been edited out or corrected.
I’ve never published a “perfect” manuscript, and I doubt I ever will. But my
goal is no errors in the published manuscript.
So that’s it. May your
writing days be productive ones.
Next Blog: Idea
farming—growing your plot
My website is: www.crdowning.com
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