Today is Friday, which is always crazy day around here because my kids have after school activities they must be ferried to and from. But it is extra crazy today because 1) my oldest son has an extra appointment, this one the dentist and 2) it's my husband's birthday, which means I have to take the kids to my mother in law's and drop them off so hubby and I can have a nice, romantic dinner and movie.
And somewhere in there, I need to get my husband a birthday present (especially after he unexpectedly brought me a present on Valentine's Day, which we normally don't celebrate!). He dropped the hint last night that he'd like his own iPod because the stuff on the speakers in the office is more like people randomly banging pots and pans and hollering than anything that resembles music.
I'm probably not going to get a chance to write today (or, indeed, until next Tuesday, because the weekend is packed). I mean, I might find time to whack out a few sentences or even a couple of paragraphs, but anything other than that is pie in the sky.
And I hate it when I don't get a decent chunk of writing time for days at a stretch. I begin to lose touch with my characters, with my story, and my passion for it. I don't need to write a lot, but if I don't write at least four manuscript formatted pages each day, I definitely start to feel like a slacker.
So, what about you? Do you have to write every day or do you just write whenever you have the time and/or feel like it? Do you have a target number of pages/words or do you just write as much as comes out and then walk away, no matter how much or how little it was? Inquiring minds want to know!
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6 comments:
And we miss it when we don't get your excerpts!
I'm going to TRY to write in spurts. We'll see how it goes. Starting...NOW!
Do you have to write every day or do you just write whenever you have the time and/or feel like it?
I have to write every day because if I skip even one day, suddenly I wake up and it turns out I've skipped like 5 months. (OK, not that bad, but pretty close.) For me, I need a mix of accountability and habit. I try to write first thing every morning (before I even shower!) so that in my brain, waking up with equal "writing time". And the accountability thing comes when my darling CPs start posting reminders on my blog when I don't deliver. =)
Do you have a target number of pages/words or do you just write as much as comes out and then walk away, no matter how much or how little it was?
I *try* to do one scene per day. Some are really short, like, say, villain scenes. (Well, not with me because I love my villains, but they're still shortER than h/h scenes.) Other scenes, like, say, love scenes or courtroom drama can go on for pages, so I might break that up over a couple days. The reason I tell myself I need to write a scene (rather than wordcount) is that it gives me a direction, a starting place, and an ending place. I write much better when I know what to do. (And every night before I go to bed, I try to remind myself of the topic of the next morning's scene, so I can literally dream up something to write. g*)
I really try to write a little bit before and after work every day...but sometimes I am bad. The weekends are intended for longer chunks of writing and research time, and I usually go back and re-read to get my head back into it and tweak stuff I didn't do right the first or 62nd time. If I want to get to 90,000 words,I've got less than 10,000 to go...I don't see myself needing to go much beyond that...but I haven't put myself on a deadline...cause that will only mean I'll HAVE to write a query letter!
I try to write every day. My word goal is 500 words UNLESS I'm revising -- then, I try to do a chapter a day. I end up reading the chapter I did yesterday, tweaking it, tackling today's chapter, tweaking it, and then sometimes go back and tweak yesterday's yet again. Tedious but seems to be paying off!
Also, happy b-day to your hubby!
I would love to be able to write every day.
Alas.
I write almost every day. I get cranky and panicked if I've gone a few days without writing. I've just been a writing slacker for so much of my life, I'm terrified that I'll fall off the wagon and relapse into slackerdom again if I lose the momentum.
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