People all around me are constantly reading about how to get more out of their day, how to set goals, and how to organize their time into manageable chunks of productivity.
If you write, you may have found yourself writing an idea, putting it aside, waking up at 5am, writing another idea, putting it aside, ad infinitum (Or, like Buzz Lightyear says 'To infinity and beyond!'). Two years later, you've amassed a serious collection of notebooks with cool covers, a writing prompt collection or two you opened once, and zero serious writing completed.
It suuuuucks (in my experience) to be that person having a ton of ideas but no idea how to even being to focus on any one of those ideas. What's even worse is when other people start doing better than you and suddenly you realize what a 'failure' you are.
I'll let you in on a secret, I literally cannot STAND when a person I know (or know of) does something I want to do in the field of writing. Will I tell them that? Absolutely not. Will I support them 100%? Of course. Will I silently seethe and force myself to focus hardcore on my own ambitions? 100% yes.
But then, how do you move from a pattern of jotting to the habit of writing?
It's our nemesis! Time management!
Yes.
It is time. If you want to actually get shit done, you're gonna need to... make lists, maybe with highlighters and fun colors to distract yourself from the tedium of life, block out sections of time (elusive bastard), set goals and mini-goals, and then put these in a place where you consistently look.
I have done this more than once, but in a notebook and never touched the schedule. It needs to be somewhere you're guaranteed to see it. Especially if you're like me and forget about something as soon as you take your eyes off of it.
No lie, I use a white board and it really works. The sucker is big and unavoidable. I stick it right behind my computer or desk (depending on where I am) so I'm forced to see it through-out the day.
I am convinced that writers are their own worst enemy. We can get so in our head about one damn thing that we never do anything. Or even worse, we do the thing, get criticism on it, and take it too personally to do anything else for an unspecified amount of time.
What I recommend is writing in time chunks. You write an hour of this, an hour of that, if you get really into it keep going, if you don't FILL THAT TIME SLOT WITH WRITING ANYWAY. It might turn into a different project you do enjoy, or it might sit on your computer for six years and eventually be re-written and sold on Kindle for 99 cents cause why not?
The key is to just get things moving and get them down. When it's done you can start blocking in time for the first edit... and the second edit... and then finding an editor... All while you start moving on to new projects cause time is a slippery bitch.
When people talk about consistency being the way to make things happen, it sounds tiring and dumb and annoying, but it really is. You gotta be out there constantly looking forward and working towards things. Take time off, but I really don't recommend falling into the trap of 'You don't have to push yourself too hard' if you have something you actually want to achieve.
No one else is going to push you. No one else is going to give the slightest shit about your goals or if you achieve them. You gotta push you, you gotta care about what you want to achieve.
In a show of solidarity towards the suckage, here is my current scheduling board (and yes, I do draw smiley faces in the completed boxes):
My writing updates from these past two weeks:
-Writing stuff has been really quiet. Like next level quiiiieeeeet. I haven't needed to up my submissions cause I'm still at 30. There have been no changes.
-Where Nightmares Roam was put on contract! Woooo! The only problem is now I gotta write 1500 words a day for four months for a grand total of 800USD. But at least it's something.
-Some might know that Nanowrimo has started, which for me is just going to be a straight, final edit of Silence, Broken. I'll probably send it to a pro in a few months...maybe, depending on the price.
And that's it. That's all I got. I'mma go do some others things on my list of stuff. See ya!
To check out what I'm writing: Drone Girl: https://www.wattpad.com/1268204000-drone-girl-prologue (updated every two weeks)
Where Nightmares Roam: https://www.webnovel.com/book/where-nightmares-roam_24450607206805105 (now updating daily!)
To support the author (me!):
My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mea_andrews Until next time! -Mea
Bye.