How I Write

Since I don't have classes this week, and I obviously don't have a job, I've got a week of days where the kids are in school and I'm not.  I decided to use this time to work on this novel I've been working on (oh, come on.  Of course I'm writing a novel.), because, theoretically, there will be seven hours per day during which there are no distractions.  If you've ever tried to write creatively, you may already note the bullshit in that sentence.  If you haven't, let me explain why that idea is total and utter bullshit.

This is how a day of "writing" goes in my house.

First, I get up and make coffee and dawdle around with morning-type activities that sometimes include doing a crossword puzzle on my iPod.  Then I set up my laptop.

I open up the file I'm working on.  Sometimes I adjust the margins or the page layout.  And then usually I read back a bit to make sure I'm going to be in the right frame of mind to start writing. 

Then I notice a bit of breakfast in my teeth.  I go to the bathroom and examine my teeth.  I then determine that I need to brush, floss, polish and otherwise go through an entire oral hygiene regimen that I may or may not have completed only about an hour ago.  After I'm done with my teeth, I realize my eyebrows could probably use some plucking.  I set about doing that for awhile, accompanied by fiercely watering eyes and curse words, and then I think of a brilliant sentence.  I go back to the computer and type it.  It doesn't look right.  So I go back to change the dog to a cat to make it fit better.  No matter that the dog/cat appears eleventy billion times up to this point: that's what Find and Replace is for!

By this time, it's probably noonish.  Time for lunch!  I take an entire hour making the most elaborate lunch possible, and serve it to myself with real cloth napkins and shit.  I take my time eating the lunch I so meticulously prepared for myself, and then I sit back down at the computer.

Someone e-mails me.  Wait, it might be important!  I check the e-mail and then decide to check Facebook too, while I'm at it.  Somebody might be looking for me or waiting to ask me a burning question.  It's not good to make people wait with burning questions.  That's how people end up with charred bits that need Tough Actin' Tinactin.  And I'm just not ready to be responsible for that.  I end the chat with some lofty pronouncement that it's "now time for me to write!" and then realize that it's 2:59.  I have one minute to write something profound before I have to go get the kids from school.

The profound thing, of course, doesn't come in a minute, so I go get the kids.  And then when they're done with homework, I write a blog post.

And then later tonight, as I'm trying to fall asleep, I will have approximately one jillion great ideas for the book.  None of which I'll remember when I wake up.

This right here is why I'm adhering to the Stephen King principle of writing a hundred words per day.  Even if they're crap words, this book is going to get written a hundred words at a time.  Or it will until I get distracted by something shiny again.