writing schedule

Marketing Day/Admin day today! My goal: to catch up on my finances and to research, craft and send out three queries for articles; I'll probably spend much of today offline at the Toronto Reference Library. I currently have four queries still circulating. Finished and submitted one article yesterday, still have two articles to write within the next few weeks. One of these articles is for a print visual artist magazine in the U.S....I'm being paid to interview my sister, very cool.

I also got word from Applied Arts and Harp Column about when my articles will be appearing. "Online Resources For Harpists" will appear in the March issue of Harp Column, and my profile of Vancouver illustrator, Luc Latulippe, will appear in the March/April issue of Applied Arts. It will mean being able to add some nice-looking clippings to my portfolio (clippings from online publications are great, of course, but aren't as impressive-looking to some print editors).

My daily work schedule has pretty much settled into the following these days: get up at 6-6:30 a.m. Write my Market Watch column for about an hour...sometimes less, sometimes more (I usually browse for publishing news items later in the day as well). Write my Blatherings for about an hour, then have some breakfast, sometimes a shower...since I usually go to the gym in the afternoon and shower then, however, I sometimes wait until then.

I spend more time on my Blatherings than I did when I first started because I take it more seriously as a writing exercise, and also because I've realized that many of my Blathering columns are potential fodder for article queries. Then again, I'm seeing potential articles in almost everything these days. :-) I keep a brainstorming page on my computer (and on paper) so that if inspiration strikes, I can write it down and get it out of my head (else the idea(s) tend to flutter around and bang into things, distracting me from what I should be focussing on). On Marketing/Admin day, I go through these brainstorm lists and whittle them down to the most promising topics, then choose the best to turn into actual queries.

It's funny how valuable my Blatherings have become to me in my writing...I highly recommend a daily journal (even if it's not public :-)) for any serious writer, or even anyone who is thinking about becoming a serious writer. Just the act of forcing yourself to write about something every day is an excellent exercise. I know it's definitely helped my writing.

In The Right To Write, author Julia Cameron refers to this exercise as "Morning Pages". For sheer inspiration to just write, I highly recommend Julia Cameron's book, Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down The Bones, and Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird. Whenever I start feeling like my writing's getting stagnant or unmotivated, I take out one of these books and read a random chapter. All three are laced with personal anecdotes.

Those of you who prefer inspiration that leans more heavily toward practical instruction tips should try the Anne Lamott book first. Julia Cameron's book is especially good for those with little time to write and who aren't sure how you'll -ever- have time to write. It's sometimes too easy to give into the image of the writer as an angst-ridden artist, spending far more time talking about writing than actually writing.

Which reminds of one of my favourite writing-related quotes, by Noel Coward: "What I adore is supreme professionalism. I'm bored by writers who can write only when it's raining." I used to have this printed out on a piece of cardstock and stuck up on my cork message board.

I also tend to be one of those writers who don't like talking about her current writing projects in detail, especially my fiction. If you ask me what my novel is about, I'm likely to be blunt and say I don't want to talk about it. I think I've ticked off certain acquaintances by this reply. For me, most of the energy and enjoyment of writing a novel is in the act of telling. If I talk about it before writing it down, then I'm not nearly as motivated to tell it again. Just it call it a writerly idiosyncrasy of mine. :-)

But I've gotten off the topic of scheduling. After I Blather (for me, this is the equivalent of a morning cup of coffee), I catch up on admin stuff a bit...planning my day, answering urgent work-related e-mail, then work on my fiction writing for a couple hours. Lunch break for about half an hour, usually leftovers from a meal cooked earlier in the week (these days I purposely plan cooking dinners to end up having enough extra for my lunches). Sometimes I go out for lunch with a friend, but I try not to do this more than once or twice a week. Afternoons are focussed on research and writing nonfiction.

I usually hit a slump around 2:30 or 3 pm, so take a break to do errands outside and/or work out at the gym. I know this seems like early for some people, but remember that by this time I've usually put in about 6-8 hours of work. When I get back, I work on stuff that doesn't take a ton of creative concentration...sending out requests for submission guidelines, for example, going through snailmail, general administrative stuff.

So far, this schedule seems to be working out okay for me. Since getting back from our sabbaticals, Jeff and I have both resolved not to work in the evenings. I also find that my schedule leaves me with enough energy and time to do a lot more cooking at home. Last night I tried cooking Indian food for the first time, and it actually turned out okay! I made makkani murghi (from scratch) and coconut thai rice (from a box). With enough leftovers for a couple lunches, yum. :-)



Blatherpics

	Sack o' sauce ad. Bizarre thing is, it was really used as an ad at some point in the past by someone (the Oscar Mayer people, I assume). I'm trying to imagine some advertising agency having a board meeting and saying, "WOW, this is REALLY GOING TO BLOW EVERYONE AWAY!"
	This ad for beer we saw on Queen Street had the blurb: "Resist the temptation of convenience." ?!?!?! What the heck is that supposed to mean? Other beers are convenient, but this particular beer isn't? It's more convenient to not drink? I don't get it. I would make a terrible advertising executive.