Feeling Lightheaded

As discussed here, I've struggled with making time to write. Set time, anyway. So I've finally come up with a plan to rectify that.

Starting Sunday, I will begin waking up at 6 A.M., then sitting down to write, the old ass-in-chair (and-don't-play-World-of-Warcraft-or-surf-the-Internet) technique. It's a drastic change considering I've been a night owl, staying up until the wee hours of the morning, for the past seven years or so. But this is the best time for my writing. As much as I like the quiet of night, I think it also lulls me into a state of inaction. I'm more productive when the sun is shining and there aren't shows like Mythbusting American Loggers of the Bering Sea on TV to distract me.

I might drink tea, too. Some horror writer I am, eh?

When I attended Necon last year, I discussed the issue of finding time to write with Dan Keohane, who said he did a lot of writing on his one-hour lunch breaks. This is how he wrote—at least partially—his first novel, Solomon's Grave, a fantastic and highly recommended supernatural thriller akin to—and I'm sure he's sick of hearing this, considering he's not a bazillionaire—Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. He also said that he posted progress updates to his blog once a week, and this helped motivate him to make those numbers continue to rise.

Good advice, I think. So I'm also going to update this old blog each week with how many words/stories/whatever I've written. Boring for you, maybe, but hopefully it'll motivate me and put me face-to-face with proof (not that I really need it) that small amounts do add up.

And we'll see how it all plays out. I'm also going to start taking cues from other writers, doing WIP Wednesdays and whatnot. Looking forward to it, actually.