Sunday 26 October 2008

Apparently Disorganisation is a Strategy

What good news this is for me.
Took Princess Three to the library yesterday so she could play in the kiddies section and I could browse for a few books I need for research purposes. Yes I know I do it the wrong way round. I write the book THEN I research the facts. I find this way works better for me, as it minimises the research I do. I only have to study things I know I need to know about instead of spending days researching stuff for a scene that I later cut. I HATE research you see. I know some of you love it. Wanna do mine? If I ever got a million dollar book deal, the first thing I'd do is hire a research assistant. I love the idea of sending someone else off to do all that pesky fact verifying. And he/she would have to make coffee too. Good strong cappuccino.

Where was I? Oh yeah, back to reality. Writing in dribs and drabs between innumerable tedious daily tasks.

Whilst at the library I picked up a book called Time to Write, by Kelly L Stone, and I'm actually finding it very motivating. If you hear yourself saying you could only get published/make more money etc if you had more time to write, this is a book I would recommend. Very few full time writers start out that way and many wrote their first books with small children underfoot and/or full-time jobs outside the home. This I knew, but it's good to be reminded that it can be done. Which leads me to the the subject of my post. Yes I am getting there.

Apparently there is such a thing as the "Mini-Blocks of Time Writer", i.e. the writer who writes in short bursts of 10 mins to half an hour, several times a day. There's also the "Any Opportunity or Combo Writer", which is fairly self explanatory. This is how I write -- in short bursts at any given opportunity, sometimes in long bursts like "Blitz Writers" if the opportunity presents (when's the next blue moon?). Sometimes at night when the kiddies are in bed if they haven't completely shattered me that day. In other words there's no clear pattern, it's just go hell for leather if Cherub is sleeping and Princess Three is momentary distracted by Dora the Explorer. I thought his was just plain old disorganisation. Apparently it's a strategy, what I'm now going to call the no-schedule schedule. I can be as disorganised as I like and still feel smugly justified that I am indeed following a ligit timetable. It says so right in this book.

Now that’s my kind of plan.


Sami

4 comments:

  1. Hi Sami,
    The book sounds interesting. I may have to search out the library. Your plan sounds good. Any plan is better than none at all. For me writing in short bursts does not work. I don't get into the head of my characters therefore I do long stints at a time. Say five days or four days a week, up to ten to twelve hours. heheeh... Oh, and yes I do have writing plans all there as from Tuesday... draft and draft, write and write.

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  2. Disorganised writing describes me to a tee at the moment, so am very, very, VERY happy with this post!

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  3. Hey! Is this the no plan plan?
    That's the one my brain likes. I wish it wasn't but it is so we do what we can with what we've got.
    At least now I can say it's legit.
    RC

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  4. Yes, I though it was good to know I actually am working to a plan, even though it doesn't seem that way!

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