Starting a new exercise in discipline
Filed under Writing Journal on February 24, 2009
Tagged: laptops, Relvan's Rescue, writing exercises
I bought a new laptop last week. Nothing fancy. No dual core processor, only a half-gig of ram and about 40 gigs of storage. And technically, it wasn’t “new.” New to me, but my old man bought this laptop some five years ago. He wiped it clean of everything but the operating system and some productivity software (e.g., Word, Excel and PowerPoint) before handing it over.
The purchase was driven by several factors. The one most pertinent to this discussion was allocating time in my schedule for fiction writing (as opposed to blogging or technical writing). Writing at home on the desktop has not been working for me. I come home from work in the evenings mentally exhausted and, after putting the kids to bed, have little desire when I sit down in front of the keyboard to do more than play a game of solitaire or catch up on TV shows I missed last week. Saturday mornings (while the kids watch cartoons) and evenings are typically spent writing blog posts, putting together bible lessons for the teenage class I teach on Sunday mornings, or watching a movie with the wife.
The times I find myself most often with the desire to write is while I’m at work. Now, I know better than to write on company time and equipment, but I do get an hour to myself for lunch, and I generally don’t go out. It’s the perfect opportunity to get some writing done on a regular basis, and one I’ve wanted to take advantage of, but didn’t have the tools.
Now I do.
Of the four days last week (Monday was a holiday), I wrote during three of my lunches. My battery was dead on Thursday, the one day I went to the mall instead of staying at my desk. I decided to complete the rewrite of “Relvan’s Rescue” first, before jumping into Shattered Amulet. “Low-hanging fruit,” in corporate speak. I don’t always get a full hour to write (I do have to eat), but I was able to add just over 1,000 words total to the story. I’m looking forward to what I can do in a full week, and maybe even finishing “Relvan’s Rescue” before the end of March.
An added benefit to this writing exercise is disciplining myself to write everyday. One hour a day is just a baby step, but a step in the right direction.
How many of you use a laptop for your writing? Do you go somewhere special to write (i.e., leave the house)? Is there a particular writing exercise you started with to develop a regular writing habit?
February 24th, 2009 at 9:43 am
I do exactly the same thing with my lunch hours at work. In addition to a full-time job, I have a two-year-old daughter and a wife in med school, so that doesn’t leave much time at night and on the weekends for fiction writing (ditto exhausted!). I can usually bang out 500 words during lunch and then another 500 late in the evening, bringing me to my 1000-word daily quota.
February 24th, 2009 at 11:19 am
I try to do all my writing on my laptop as opposed to my desktop. It’s just a mental thing, plus there’s the mobility thing. Of course, my apartment is tiny so I’m never far from my actual desktop computer anyway.
February 24th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Nice post, Kam! And good idea! Mom always told me that if you chill out on the sofa watching TV, it’ll be harder for you to train yourself to start doing work on that sofa. It becomes habit to associate things.
The laptop on the lunch break routine should work well for you. Some of my old co-workers had variations of the same thing – i.e. coming in an hour before work to write or staying an hour after work to write. Their thinking was that they were already relaxed, had no distractions, etc.
But an hour lunch is perfect if you don’t go anywhere. Even if you take 30 minutes to eat, you’ll be thinking about your writing and most of your co-workers will be out getting their own lunch. Then you can spend that last half hour writing it all done. Seems perfect!
bobisimo´s last blog post was Polyphasic Sleep
February 24th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
I’m typically done eating in 15 minutes, giving me a solid 45 to write. It’s been very fruitful so far, though today was the first time I struggled to keep the flow going the whole time.
As to what your mom told you, I’ve been gaming for long enough on the desktop that it’s definitely a habit to play when I sit down there. No such association with the laptop. Not having access to wifi in the building helps, too.
February 28th, 2009 at 11:59 am
i find it much more productive to write on the old laptop that has no wi-fi access. when i’m using the new one, i’m much more likely to get lost “researching” for my writing notes
i am definitely impressed w/ your discipline. slide some this way, eh?
Alex Moore´s last blog post was Write on the River: Meet Me in Wenatchee
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:40 am
I don’t even own a desktop anymore–I find my laptop so indispensable for writing. My debut novel was written on a series of three different laptops; had I not taken moments to write whenever I could get them, I think it kight have taken me 18 years isntead of 8 to get the manuscript finished. Along the way, I also tried the Dana, and various pen-to-text devices, but nothing was as good for my productivity as a no frills laptop.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:11 am
[...] My lunch time writing has become a highlight of my work day, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of progress on my fantasy fiction projects. “Relvan’s Rescue” is finished and making the rounds. I finished the second chapter of Shattered Amulet and am pounding out scenes from chapter three. [...]
October 5th, 2009 at 6:11 am
[...] started writing again, in small chunks, but with regularity. A half-an-hour or forty-five minutes during my lunch. Sometimes 25 words a day. Sometimes 500. I reconnected with an old friend and, in time, he opened [...]