I'm sure all my friends doing NaNoWriMo feel the same way. Too many things have piled up - laundry, mail, paperwork. Plus Christmas is coming, with its requisite shopping and cleaning. Fortunately, we're all on diets so I no longer feel obliged to bake pies or cookies, although I'm sure that DS and I will still make gingerbread men. He loves decorating them. Actually, I found those train cookie cutters in the back of the drawer. We should make gingerbread trains!!!
Finals are approaching. Egads! Finals, when students approach me with fear and trembling, begging for extra help which I, the benevolent Mistress of Mathematical Light and Knowledge, generously bestow. As well, I'll have one more bunch of tests and homework papers to grade. Oh, the joy of late-night movies!!!
I envy those who have the discipline to stick to a regular writing routine. I tend to write in bursts. I find that novelling requires such intense concentration, that I can't just do a little here and there. For the past three weeks, I have been eating, sleeping and breathing my story. I wake up in the middle of the night, unable to go back to sleep. After an hour or so of lying in bed I'll get up, work for a couple of hours, then crash on the couch until my alarm goes off and try to get through my day. Yesterday I was so exhausted, I went back to bed at 8:30 a.m. and slept until 10:30. Ten-thirty!!! (the only reason I can do this is that my Tuesday class is done for the semester.)
So, what about you? How do you manage (or not) your creativity? Does your book take over your life, or are you one of those people who is really good at organizing your mind and your time? If so, please excuse me if I throw a candy cane at you.
6 comments:
Save the candy cane, Christine. I might juggle a lot, but I don't necessarily do it efficiently. This month, I'm going to try something new. A writing schedule! A carefully crafted routine of blog writing/reading, travel guide work, and novel revision. I give it a week, tops.
Out of curiosity, what is the schedule, Laura?
Between a job that keeps jumping form 40 hours a week to closer to 60, church on Sunday and Wednesday, boy scouts on Tuesdays and one weekend a month, I'm luck to get four hours a week.
These last two months it's been really hard to get "in the grove". I sit down in front of the computer mentally exhausted and my mind is just a blank.
I'm forcing myself to get a short story written each week for my character's blog, but that's about all the productive writing I'm getting done. I'm hoping for a few good days of writing during the Christmas break.
Latest short story at:
http://hathrae.com/annay/looking-for-a-home/
I salute you, Douglas, from one Akela to another!
I'm glad I'm not the only one.
My book overtakes me. But you can still throw a candy cane.
(LOL - My word verification is INGEST.)
defintely a marathon writer - write till i can't feel my fingers or till the ideas run out. veg for a few days until the ideas come again, then write like crazy.
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