Sticking to scheduled writing time

[scheherazade]

Unless I'm taking a writing workshop with deadlines, I have a hard time getting myself writing. Partly this comes from wanting to wait and build up an idea, and part comes from realizing it's already the end of the day and where has my time gone?

I'd like to set up a regular writing schedule that might help me get into writing every day, even (especially) when I don't have any ideas in mind. But my problem is I feel very trapped by schedules. I love to make them, but hate to follow them. So, unless I'm stuck in a certain place for a certain time (like a 1-hr train ride I make twice a week), I generally make excuses for why I can't write at the time I've set aside.

Is there a way that a schedule-resenting person can come to love a writing schedule? I actually think this would be easier for me if I was super-busy and had, for example, only one available hour after dinner, while the kids are at soccer practice and the spouse is reading stuff for work. My problem right now is I'm off work for a few months (and have no spouse, kids, or pets) and I actually have too much time, so it just seems easier to postpone things to later and later and later. I know this freedom should be a marvelous thing, and I was looking forward to being off for just that reason, but I just can't seem to get my motor running!

[rainboy]

I'm a schedule-resenting person, but making a writing schedule was one of the best things I ever did for my writing. Now I'm actually getting something done each day and can relax with a clear conscience as long as I meet that daily word count. And if I don't meet it, the schedule is there to remind me and kick my butt until I catch up. My advice is to don't set your daily goal so high that it becomes a struggle to meet it. My own daily word count is pretty low, but that's partly because I prefer quality over quantity and partly because I don't want to "burn out". A little every day goes a long way in the end.

[maestrowork]

HAHAHA.

Sorry... OK, I do try to stick with a schedule, but I'm SO not a schedule person. I get antsy and irritated and bored and distracted. I do work well with deadlines, however. And that's sometimes my trick -- I would have friends or fellow writers demand something from me every week, so I know I have to produce.

[scheherazade]

Now I'm actually getting something done each day and can relax with a clear conscience as long as I meet that daily word count. And if I don't meet it, the schedule is there to remind me and kick my butt until I catch up.

So, do you set up a specific time/place to write your quota, or do you just tell yourself that you need to write X number of words by the time you go to bed? Like, for example, on weekends (or non-work days), where the hours are a little more fluid.

[Use Her Name]

Make the schedule anyway and sit there in front of your writing instrument, as though you had gone to work.

I have already decided that mental stalls are a part of writing. I am not sure what reason.

Tricks I have used at times:

This sounds mental, but I pretend I am having a production meeting of some kind. "Gentlemen (and ladies) it has come to my attention that we are having a problem with this scene... Let's go over it inch by inch, and see where the problem lies.. Okay... John has just stolen the diamond, and I am having trouble getting him out of the building and into the train where he meets Sarah, who somehow knows what he has just done... any suggestions? Yes. You in the back with your hand raised..." (ect...)

Another thing to do is re-read what you wrote the day before and go into it further filling it in more.

Often, a good tactic is that the day before, leave yourself work to do for the following day. Make some sort of note that you will write the scene about Jeff and John and write what you will write (briefly).

Use a scene by scene outline. This is similar to the last "idea," but the difference is that you can spend a day or two writing what you will be writing for the next week or so of work. You might even use a calendar. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...

If you are having problems with 1000 words per day (or whatever your wanted word count is,) then give yourself half that until you are used to it.

Theme music, exercise, and all sorts of things, or "play acting."

A way that has been successful to me is to pre-write on notebook paper w/ pen while taking a walk or going to the library, or anywhere, then going home and typing it up. For some reason, when I am walking, I think more then when I am sitting still. You could also take a little digital tape recorder, and kind of "talk to yourself" (pick somewhere remote).

I actually don't like a schedual. I get to resent it. I have to change my "method" every few months to become interested again.

[scheherazade]

I do work well with deadlines, however. And that's sometimes my trick -- I would have friends or fellow writers demand something from me every week, so I know I have to produce.

Have you ever managed to work with a self-imposed, artificial deadline? I mean I guess the daily quota is sort of like that same idea.

My only problem with external deadlines that involve handing stuff in to other people is that I get apprehensive about being judged, and so I tend to put off the assignment until the night before. Recently I wrote a story for a class that was going to be entered into a contest, so I somehow inspired myself to trudge through it every day instead of leaving it to the last. I think what inspired me to actually get something done was that at the end of the day and first thing in the morning, I'd read and re-read a printout of everything I'd written so far while eating breakfast or in commute, make obsessive edits, and then, when I was ready to start writing, I'd make the edits onscreen as a way of getting back into writing for the day. So if I hadn't written anything the previous day (which was unheard of with this method), I wouldn't have anything new to re-read, and I'd already be sick of obsessing over the stuff I'd written up to the day before. The only thing I disliked about my method was that I was doing most of my writing from about midnight to 4 a.m., getting up around 2 p.m. the next day (all of my commitments are in the evenings) and then generally feeling like a zombie on a different schedule from everyone else.

I'd like to somehow build a schedule that is in sync with the rest of the world and therefore sustainable. :) My problem is I seem to be more inspired when it's dark outside...

[maestrowork]

I do "go to work" every day instead of staying at my home office. It creates that artificial "off to work" mentality. At home -- doesn't matter if I have a home office -- I'm just useless. I can't, however, write for a big block of time without feeling anxious. So I have my distractions. The worst is the Internet. I usually try to use it to break up the dreck, but if I stay on the Internet for too long, I'll be done with.

Have you ever managed to work with a self-imposed, artificial deadline? I mean I guess the daily quota is sort of like that same idea.

Self-imposed deadlines don't work for me. Telling myself I need to write 1000 words a day doesn't work for me. I need an actual deadline, enforceable by someone else instead of my own whim.

[scheherazade]

For some reason, when I am walking, I think more then when I am sitting still.

Ha, yep! Me too. Of the last 3 short stories I've written, I've started writing the first paragraph of all while away from my desk - 2 while walking, and 1 while watching a thunderstorm.

I read that Stephen King used to walk every day (not sure how this has changed after his accident a few years ago), partly to help work through his stories. Whether or not you admire his writing, you can't deny that the guy is loaded with ideas.

Actually, I'd say the time in my life when I was most swimming in story ideas and always writing a story in my head was when I used to have a newspaper route. I had a guaranteed 30 minute period, 6 times a week, when I could just think through stuff while my legs were moving and my blood was circulating. These days it's too easy to waste your walking time with an iPod or a cell phone... though I'll admit I do a lot of reading when I walk (because sometimes it's the only time I can get any reading done!). Not sure whether it's better to be productive while walking, or to free up your mind to just wander and come up with ideas...

[David I]

Someone once said that writing isn't hard--what's hard is sitting down to write.

Everyone uses different tricks to get their butt into the chair. Karen Peterson, a psychotherapist and writer, has a book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1593375034/qid=1145213577/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/103-9884901-3120640?v=glance&s=books)that talks about how little the right brain likes things like schedules, and discusses ways of letting the left brain bribe the right brain into working.

Of course, when things are going well, the right brain thinks it's playing, not working....

[Phaeal]

If you're not working, you need to view writing as your job. Set aside four hours at whatever time of day or night you're most productive. If you need it, schedule a break into the period, but don't take up any of the four hours. You want an hour break in the middle, you're looking at a five hour stretch.

You will write four hours at least five days a week. When the hour comes for a writing session, you will sit down in front of computer or notebook, and you will either write or you'll sit there and do absolutely nothing else.

Your mother should be rolling her eyes at you right now and saying, "There are writers in China who are starving for the kind of time you have! Use it!"

Writers don't want to write or intend to write or daydream about writing. Writers write.

[The stern headmistress now exits, stage left.]

[rainboy]

So, do you set up a specific time/place to write your quota, or do you just tell yourself that you need to write X number of words by the time you go to bed? Like, for example, on weekends (or non-work days), where the hours are a little more fluid.

Each day before I go to bed I must have met my daily word count. If I write more than that I just look at it as a bonus and it doesn't mean I can write less the following day. Sometimes I write it all in the morning, other times I write it all in the evening. Sometimes I write half in the morning and then the other half in the evening. It depends on my mood. If I'm having problems concentrating I take my dog for a walk while listening to music on my iPod, just to clear my mind and regain focus. Sometimes during the summer I bring along pen and paper and sit down in a field for some stream-of-consciousness writing. At least then I don't have any tempting distractions nearby.

Also, I keep my writing schedule taped on my bedroom door with a pen dangling next to it from a piece of string. When I go to bed I grab the pen and write down my daily "word mileage". Next to the word count column, I have a little [good, acceptable, bad] scale I tick off. It's mostly for measuring the quality of the writing so I don't fall into the trap of just writing a bunch of crap every day for the sole purpose of meeting my word count (quality > quantity). If I can meet the word count and tick off "good" or "acceptable", then I know the book is one step closer to done. If I wake up the next day without having met my daily goal from the previous day, the schedule will be hanging there on the bedroom door snorting with mock derision, and that will spur me on to write myself out of that guilty conscience hell I'll consequently be finding myself in.

Anyway, this seems to work for me. It's almost as if the book is writing itself now. I think it helps to have the entire book planned out (at least in your head) before you start so you know what to write. Also, I don't write in a linear fashion. I jump around and write scenes according to my mood. I guess my program is pretty "laid back", but like I said, that's to prevent myself from burning out. There was a time when my daily goal was a lot higher, but then I would burn out after a while and not write for several weeks. I prefer to set the daily goal a little lower and then write every day to keep myself in "writing mode" and avoid that sense of stagnation.

[goatpiper]

I write when I wake up. While I'm drinking coffee. Doesn't matter whether it's six in the morning or two in the afternoon. It's just the first thing I do every day. If it isn't the first thing I do in a day, it never gets done. Period.

[Harper K]

I feel scheduled enough by my day job and other commitments I have outside of writing that I can't bring myself to give myself a writing schedule to stick to. I do consider writing a second job, and I do usually write around the same time each day, but I'm not going to berate myself if I decide to watch a movie one night instead of doing my usual 2 - 3 hours of writing.

A couple things I do to keep me writing nearly every day:

-- Stop writing for the day when I'm in the middle of a scene I feel confident about. I love writing dialogue-heavy scenes, and I feel I'm pretty good at them, so if I stop in the middle of a heated conversation between two characters, and I know exactly where that conversation is going to go, you'd better believe I'll be impatient to sit down and finish it. That'll be the start of the next day's writing session.

-- As Use Her Name said, write out notes for the next day's work. It's like a mini-outline, and it works really well for keeping you on track.

-- Do you have a friend or family member who can help you set deadlines and then hold you to them? For a while, my husband set deadlines for me. I'd have to have Chapter X done by a certain date... and if I didn't I'd have to take him out to dinner, buy him a bottle of his favorite Scotch, or some other minor punishment. 'Twas fun. I didn't take the deadlines too seriously at first, but after a while I trained my brain to regard them just as seriously as a deadline in my day job. Now I set (and mostly stick to) my own deadlines.

[MrWrite]

I find a schedule impossible to stick to. I'm kind of a feast or famine person. When I'm in the mood I can write a whole scene and I find I go through phases where I'll write 3 or 4 days in a row. But then I often go a week or more without writing. It gets frustrating as I am often thinking of my story even when I don't feel like sitting and writing. I think part of the problem is I'm not sure what to do with my antagonist. I feel I need to write more scenes with him in but the reader isn't supposed to know he's a killer until near the end to (hopefully) heighten the suspense when his role is revealed. So right now I don't know how to use him without giving him away. Maybe if I can figure out what to do about him. I just wrote nearly 3,000 words, the most I've written in one go so far.

[Prozyan]

I don't have a schedule, per se, meaning I don't say "I'm writing between 10:00 and 2:00" or anything like that.

I do have a ritual though. When I'm ready to work, its four hours. Read the first two, then write the next two. I do revisions, editing, etc, at another time.

[nevada]

Don't make such a big deal about it, and don't make it so long. It is what it is. Schedule ten minutes. Everyone, no matter how schedule-challenged they are, can concentrate for ten minutes. If after ten minutes you want to continue, then do so. If you don't, then don't. No judging yourself, no playing the "should" game. You scheduled ten minutes, you wrote ten minutes. You fulfilled your goal. I think that once you've started you will almost always right longer. But I think right now, you have a case of the shoulds. I "should" schedule regular time, I am not working so i "should" write for at least 4 hours a day. Bah. You are not doing it because quite honestly who wants to do anything for four hours if we feel we "have" to. We only work 8 to ten hours a day because we get paid to and if we don't we get into trouble. You're approaching writing like that too. Turn it around. Make it as short a time as you can get away with. Set your timer. For ten minutes you will write. You can think about it lots, but that's not part of the time. The minute you start typing/writing, you time it and you stop after ten minutes. I bet you wont want to stop and you'll continue but it'll be fun, it'll be because you "want" to, not because you "should".

But remember, motivation follows action. You have to do something before you want to do it. This does actually work. I had to clean up my bedroom the other day and I didn't want to. But i said, okay for five minutes you will pick up your clothes. after that you can stop. Once I started it wasn't so bad at all and everything was done in 45 minutes. But if i'd said to myself you "should" take an hour and really clean the bedroom, I'd still be dodging piles of clothes on my way to the bed.

Good luck.

[scheherazade]

I think it helps to have the entire book planned out (at least in your head) before you start so you know what to write. Also, I don't write in a linear fashion.

Yes.. I think this is my greatest barrier lately. When I've had a solid plot in mind and given time to daydreaming different scenes, I find it difficult to tear myself away from the page. But over the past few years I have a hard time latching on to a particularly interesting plot. For awhile I just didn't write, but that isn't any better. So I've been sort of following the National Novel Writing Month formula to get over your fear of writing -- just sit down and write ANYTHING. Theoretically you'll eventually force yourself to create a plot, but you'll also end up writing a lot of crap and wasting a lot of time, so I'm not entirely sure this is the best method.

The best I've been able to do lately is write one-page "glimpses" into characters or settings. These are fun and easy to do, and my writing teacher (a poet, who is perhaps more impressed with my sentences than any semblance of a plot) always encourages me to continue working with the better ones, but I can never see anywhere to take them beyond that first page.

Hmm... this poses another question that I may ask in another thread about pre-writing planning.

[Lady Cat]

I was one of those kids in highschool who when they had to do something according to a schedule, it was the last thing they wanted to do. It's the same with my writing. I can't stick to a schedule to save myself.

I'm in the same boat as you (I may even be captain of the boat). I'm between jobs and I have a LOT of time to myself.

Instead of a set time to write, I have a set number of words to write every day. Right now I'm only committed to 500 words a day, but usually I do a lot more. Somehow it takes the pressure off to know I can write whenever I want, just so long as I write my minimum number of words.

[MsK]

scheherazade- Along with you and everyone else who has responded, I detest schedules.
One thing that has (somewhat) worked for me is a reward system. Maybe I'm sitting in front of the computer doing anything but working on my writing and I get the idea I want a Starbucks coffee, piece of chocolate, glass of wine or something else I would consider a treat, I can then use that reward as my motivation. For example, I make a deal with myself that I have to get through two pages of editing before I can have my coffee.

[scheherazade]

OK, I'm seeing lots of great ideas here, thanks! I like the idea of charting my progress somewhere on my wall where I can admire it or let it guilt me if I haven't met my daily goal (even if it is a pretty nerdy thing to do, I am not denying I'm a nerd) - that's something I used in college to keep track of hours devoted in each subject and it worked really, really well to motivate me without requiring me to schedule set hours to work. There's always that inspiration of "well, I'm on a roll, so if I just do another 500 words, I can put another checkmark on my board."

And perhaps there can be some reward tied to that - if I meet my quota today I'll buy an iced coffee, or I get some other reward if I write X number of words a week (ie, 7 x daily quota plus a bit extra, so you have a little flexibility to take days off if you need them, or get rewarded for days when you put in that little extra); or there can be a disincentive if you fail.

But really, I'm realizing that I'm lacking an idea to sustain myself. I do push myself to write in little bursts - 10 or 20 minutes - and I'm always so uninspired by my stream of consciousness stories that I have no desire to continue with them. I think if I spent a little more time nurturing a character or building up a plot, I'd be better able to at least start the writing periods. So I'm thinking I may try to set some sort of daily "creative time" but use it more to brainstorm characters and plotlines than to start pouring out the story just yet...

[a_sharp]

Scheherazade,

Consider your writing times a gift to yourself, rather than punishment imposed from an outer source. Your writing is not a job, it is a gift in and of itself, and since it comes to you so well in your web posts, it is within you to bring it out in fiction form as well.

It's important to allocate a portion of your day regularly to writing. That doesn't have to coincide with office hours, a toe-tapping boss waiting at the door because you're late. Give yourself the leeway to enter writing at your convenience, but generally in the evening or after dinner (it sounds like that's whatr you're striving for). Without some sort of regularity, the habit of writing and listening to your inner voice is difficult to maintain. But you can go at it without becoming religious about hours.

Start out by giving yourself permission to write, for example, after eight. Then sit down sometime around eight with your writing material before you. Allow yourself to be early or late, but strike for a beginning you feel will work for you. Then give yourself permission to devote the next few minutes or hours to listening to your writer's voice that allows and rewards, rather than the outer voice that demands and punishes. In this way, you will discover that "schedule" can have many nuances, all of them beneficial to you.