Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Crap! Back to work.

    Crap! I gotta get to work on my stuff. Sure, I’ve done a little but not enough. The summer has gotten away without getting much done on my manuscripts let alone any of the other projects lurking about. I catch glimpses of them daily. The boxes of flooring hunch in the corner of the front-room. The new trim waits patiently in the garage. The wall around the plot next to the patio begs to be filled with dirt. Errk! I need to win Mega-Millions and hire a handyman.

    Okay, enough whining. Too much really. I went to conference, got a request for fifty pages of two manuscripts and it’s time to buckle down.

    What does buckle down mean exactly? Where’d that phrase come from? Hitch up your pants and tighten your belt before getting busy?
   
    There goes my ADHD again. In my case it ought to be HDAD; High Definition Attention Deficit. So, where was I? Oh yeah, getting down to it. Getting down to it? A mining term possibly? Never mind.

    So, what’s my plan? A reasonable, logical person would come up with a plan. But I’m not much of a planner. I live in the moment and I don’t say that with pride. I know plans are good things and I ought to embrace them but I don’t like them. I don’t like them the way I don’t like rodents. I’m not afraid of them, I have no phobias I’m aware of. I loathe them. If there is no reason not to, I kill rodents. In my world, because my wife is in it, there are reasons not to kill rodents. I don’t understand them but they exist, just trust me on that. Uh,oh, HDAD again.

    My plan is to work on my manuscripts every day, even if only for an hour. Seven hours a week minimum, that’s my goal. I’m not sure if set-up time is included. Not all the details of my plan are worked out. Do I include the time driving to the coffee shop and getting out my laptop? Or, do I start the timer once my fingers hit the keyboard? I don’t have a lot of experience with plans after all. My sense of it is, that it should be actual writing so that’s the way I’m leaning.

    The trouble is I’m at the point where it’s not actual writing. I have to go through and fix things, define things, clean things up. I know that’s part of writing but I like the first draft part better. Hence the need for a plan. (Whew, almost started whining again but I pulled it back.)

    Anyway, that’s my plan. I’ll write seven hours a week minimum and some every day. I hope that by writing every day I’ll get in more than seven. That way the things get done and out so I can start a new project. I also hope that, by posting my plan, I’ll stick to it.

    So, what’s your plan? Got one? Like’em? Hate’em?

5 comments:

  1. Right now I'm at a point if I write a page it's a good day. I'm completely unable to concentrate. The weather is too nice! The house needs organizing and decorating for fall! The kids are out of clothes!
    Gaaaaaa!

    Today, I introduced a novel concept (hehe, see what I did there?) into my SF/Erotica WIP. Suddenly I'm rocking excited about it.

    And I'm blogging...

    Ok. Back to it.

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  2. Love that you're planning and love The Plan. I might just plan around The Plan to make my Plan more fruitful.

    However, I want to know The Plan for the boxes of flooring, new trim and dirt for the rose garden. :)

    Vicki
    ...who by the way spends so much time planning, the actual execution sometimes gets lost...

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  3. I'm using your plan until my plan shows up.

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  4. Betsy? Excited about erotica? Who'd a thunk it?

    And, Vicki, I come up with one plan and you suddenly think I have a knack for it? Sheesh!

    Colette, Use it if you must but I'm an apprentice planner at best. Good luck.

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  5. So much depends on what is going on around me. I don't have a lap top, but I am thinking I should. However, I really don't like them much. I'm addicted to a bigger screen. Plans often need to be revised as we go. Give yourself permission so you don't drown your creative juices.
    Thanks for dropping by my blog.
    Nancy
    N. R. Williams, Fantasy Author

    ReplyDelete