106 Miles to Chicago

The Can Fought Back

Even though it is obvious that in order to be a writer, you need to actually write, I sometimes forget it. I don't need to read any more books about writing like On Writing and Bird by Bird. No, I just have to sit somewhere, open up the iBook and start typing. But of course, easier said than done.

What if I don't feel like typing? I do that every day at work so perhaps I should write longhand instead. It has been good enough for writers throughout the ages so why should I be any different? Then again, just typing into the iBook would be more practical sometimes. Ok, we'll leave that decision for another time and just do whichever is easiest at the moment.

What about my time? Well, I do get up at 5:45 each morning so I can get on the road, drive my miles and hopefully miss traffic. Since I generally get home when the Princess and Gonzo are about to either go to sleep or settle down, I can't write then because I would much rather read them stories so I feel like I have some relationship with them other than the weekends. The perfect time should be late at night since I'm such a night owl. Unfortunately, I think the driving has taken its toll on me there. I can still stay up until the wee hours of the morning but now I have to get up and drive instead of just rolling out of bed and working. In fact, last night, I fell asleep in my office chair. I didn't even think I was that tired but there I awoke at 4:30 this morning.

I've been thinking about getting up at 5 and writing until 5:45. That seems to be a solution and I remember reading someone saying that the nice thing about writing in the morning is that no matter how bad the rest of your day turns out, you still wrote. I like that.

What do I write? That can be a tough one for me. It's not that I haven't thought of ideas, whether fiction or non-fiction, but lately it seems that I don't think through the ideas and instead just start going after it. Invariably, the idea gets lost in the words, I get frustrated and the writing stops. I don't think I need to outline every detail but I do think I should at least get a vague idea of where things are going, if only, to give myself sometime to shoot for.

I'm sure I could ask myself many more questions but these seem to be the big ones in my head. Hopefully I've answered myself enough to get me back to writing, including this blog.

Posted by Josh at June 3, 2004 03:39 PM | TrackBack