{"id":172,"date":"2004-12-13T20:10:00","date_gmt":"2004-12-13T20:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sbw.webfactional.com\/blog\/?p=172"},"modified":"2004-12-13T20:10:00","modified_gmt":"2004-12-13T20:10:00","slug":"writers-write","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/2004\/12\/writers-write\/","title":{"rendered":"Writers Write"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This I understand.  I also understand that writers read.  I am deep into Stephen King&#8217;s brilliant &#8220;On Writing&#8221;, and it is haunting me day and night, even worse than the clown from &#8220;It&#8221;.  I get it, I get it, writers write and writers read.  They do these things almost constantly.  I read like crazy, I write like crazy, but he (and all the others- Lamont, Kingsolver, Dillard) insists that writers have a schedule.  He&#8217;s got my panites in a bunch over this whole schedule thing; apparently hellfire and brimstone and utter despair is all that await the unorganized writer.  He wants me to churn out 1000 words a day, at least.  I double that number every day I&#8217;m at work, but none of them are for my own project.  I have to leave for work at 8:30 AM at the latest, and I (albeit feebly) run in the mornings, and even if I didn&#8217;t, I still couldn&#8217;t write 1000 words between 7:30 and 8:30 AM.  And that&#8217;s if I don&#8217;t bathe, which is problematic.  My evenings are about 75% full, and when they are not, I leave work some time between 6-7, getting home around 7 or 8, and then it&#8217;s the end of the day and I&#8217;m too&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I was about to say that I&#8217;m too drained to write, but it&#8217;s not true.  I just do everything better in the morning hours.  I could tuck in right now and do that 1000 words, but truth be told, I&#8217;ve had a nasty cold for almost a month and I&#8217;m about to go to bed.  Because apparently that&#8217;s the OTHER thing I should do- stay healthy.  Where does the full-time job fit in with the healthy and the reading and the writing and the schedule?  I understand that lots of writers write at work.  Lots of writers have subsistence jobs where they actually have time during the day to put pen to paper.  Not only do I not have one of those jobs, I have a job for which I am constantly WRITING.  Which is great, hey, I&#8217;m not complaining, but I am having a helluva time trying to figure out when I can schedule my three hours- three hours a day, is that asking too much?- in a row that I can close the door of my study and write for me.  My mom often bemoans that she&#8217;s tired of working on other people&#8217;s music, because it starts to interfere with her own.  I finally understand.  Mom, apparently it&#8217;s all about schedule.<\/p>\n<p>Could I swing it from 6-9 PM?  I&#8217;d have to leave work on time, and stop dating entirely.  Wait, maybe that&#8217;s not such a bad idea.  But it is the holidays, and I am booked most nights.  Could I start getting up at 6?  Even then, I&#8217;d have to be in the shower by 7:30, and that means no run.  Could I start going into work at 10?  UGH!  HOW CAN I DO THIS?!  My characters are going to become unfamiliar and stale and my plot will start to fade and everything will be ruined IF I DON&#8217;T GET ON SCHEDULE!<\/p>\n<p>Did I happen to mention that the lovely board of my super arts non-profit offered me a new contract with a raise?  AND we&#8217;re having a holiday party?  Now if only I could figure out my writing schedule.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mlwms.com\/blog\/fezcomp.jpg\" \/><br \/>\n<br \/>yet another obstacle in my schedule&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This I understand. I also understand that writers read. I am deep into Stephen King&#8217;s brilliant &#8220;On Writing&#8221;, and it is haunting me day and night, even worse than the clown from &#8220;It&#8221;. I get it, I get it, writers write and writers read. They do these things almost constantly. I read like crazy, I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}