From the blog of Toronto author Emily Pohl-Weary:
http://emily.openflows.org/index.php/?p=93#more-93
Guess what, from her and from what her commenters say it's much the same
idea as the advice I got from Linda Williams: set yourself a realistic
weekly target for the work you want to get done (in the blog commenters' case word
count), break it down into daily targets, and work out how to schedule
blocks of time for each day of the week to make sure that happens. And
when that target is reached, you're done for the day - very motivating for
getting started earlier, and working steadily.
Especially impressive is the discussion of how this approach let someone
write a thick nonfiction book, while having a fulltime job and a toddler!
This just goes to support my belief that productive people even in highly
creative areas like painting and novel writing have very structured
working habits.
1 comment:
I'm always skeptical when people say they have no time to write. If it's any kind of priority at all, you can find the time to write a page a day. And at a page a day you can get a 365 page book in a year. And a page takes no more than 45 minutes, about the length of time of a TV show.
Personally, I write for 20 minutes every morning. I have a little kitchen timer and a special computer in my bedroom to do it with. Progress is slow, but that's okay. The important thing is that it's steady and you have the thing you're writing in mind a little every day.
Stephen King writes 10 pages a day. It's no wonder he's so prolific. Thing is, even at that rate, he still only works about four to five hours a day.
May the force be with you.
Always.
JimDavies
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