6:00AM whatever day, my alarm goes off. Either slap it and get another hour of sleep, or get up now, put on the coffee and continue the chapter that I left off writing last night.
Note to self: do NOT press play on any YouTube videos.
Focus.
Turn on the kettle, add coffe to the French press, and sit my ass down at the computer. Headphones on, press play. Headphones becasue it's 6AM and I have kids and a wife and it's still an hour before they have to wake up. The last thing I want do do is wake them up. It's an hour where there is nobody nagging me to feed them or asking me where the keys are or whatever. This is the hour that's all mine. Family does not intrude and neither does work, and especially not YouTube videos that only distract me. 6AM to 7AM is the time to write. It's the time to focus.
So headphones ON. It's usually the OK COMPUTER album from Radiohead. That always gets me in the mood, the right headspace for writing. Don't ask me why, it's just been that way for a very long time. Maybe it's one of those albums that transport me to a time of creativity. Maybe its becasue I know every word and every note andI can just lose myself completely.
That's what we as writers crave the most. The ability to be transported and to become an instrument of creativity, where story just flows through us.
So we develop routines, little habits that become almost like superstitions, becauae any disruption and we might face the inevitable and dreaded writers block. That's where we lose it all when everything comes apart. It's what we fear the most.
Most mornings, I don't have to face that. I have my headphones on, kettling is thrumming away in the kitchen and in a few minutes I will have my coffee, but for now, I'm staring at the words on the page, trying to remember where I was in the story, trying to get back into the flow...
Focus...
If it all goes well, fifteen minutes later, I have to take off the headphones and reset the kettle so that the water can heat up again and I can finish the coffee ritual. The story isn't going anywhere, it's there while I wait the minute or two for the water to boil again, I can think about where the story is going.
What does my character want? Des he get it by the end of the chapter? Who is in his way, or who is helping him and what is their agenda? Everybody wants something, especially the bad guys, so how far are they willing to go? And more importantly, is any of this actually funny?
I'll worry about the funny later. The funny is in the character reactions. How they react to the situation makes it either a drama, action or comedy. You can have comedy with almost anything, but your characters always have to be doing something. The last thing you want to do with comedy or action is have your characters enter a room and one or both of them sit down. That kills any movement in a scene. It's a trick I learned not from writing screenplas, but from directing actors and I've applied it to my writing. If one character is in motion, they have something to do, some busy work, it always made the scene more energetic and fun. Keep them moving an something interesting is going to happen. You find out more about a character from what they aren't telling you, what they're fiddling with, or even how they fiddle.
I've always allowed my characters to guide me through a scene, sometimes to the point of writing the whole scene through dialogue first and then going back to add the action (another trick from writing screenplays). It allows for a more dynamic scenes and you can rough out the entire flow through dialogue (which you will adapt and tweak as you make the second pass).
Five minutes later, coffee is poured, sugar is added and I'm already thinking about a juicy bit of dialogueand trying to fnd out why that one character responded in that particular way, but I'm in the flwo of things now.
Sometimes I will join my sprint group on Discord. It doesn't matter if anybody is around. Sometimes you start a sprint and people will join in. It's just part of the habit, part of the ritual, and all this is doing is telling you to FOCUS.
732 words in 40 minutes. That's a nice start to the day. If its a brand new chapter, that's a great start. If I'm coming back in the middle of a chapter, then I'm almost finished drafting the first version before I can send it off to my editor. That depends on if I'm excited enough abot what I've written of course. I dont want to send work I'm not excited about. Sometimes I am a little concerned about an aspect of the story and then I'll send that version to make sure I'm on track. Sometimes my editor will spot something I've missed and call me out on it, but I make sure to include that when I send it. A note that says "Is this working? Don't edit, just read and let me know if this makes sense." That will trigger a conversation or make me think about it a little further.
Right now it's 7AM and the kids will be waking up soon, but I have 732 words and those are so much better than a blank page. I will tweak them over the morning and think about them if I'm busy, but editing is so much easier when something is already written down.
11AM I'll be back when I can write again for an hour and by then I can answer some of my questions. I can make the story better, but only if I focus.
*********
Sprint with me: https://discord.gg/SpRy8GFkRu
Daily goals:
6AM-7AM - write/sprint
11AM-12PM - write/sprint
2PM send to editor. 1750-2200 words (average)
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iamRodneyVSmith's Writer's Room
Non-FictionA mysterious writer from the Great Northern Wasteland known only as Toronto, invites you to share his journey into writing. A look at the writing process, deleted chapters, covers and unseen artwork, a look at how to build a social media campaign...
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