Terescia's thoughts and such.

I started this post back on 4/17/05 but got interrupted. By what, I can’t remember. I kept meaning to come back to it, but every time I thought of it or saw the little draft mark beside the entry, I didn’t actually have the inclination to finish. Well, now I do.

So, here it is. The post that almost got away. :-)

What’s allowed to interrupt my writing? Or, what should be allowed to interrupt my writing.

• Business. Income is a necessity, unfortunately. But not just any business. In fact, I’ve finally put a limit on the amount of business I allow in my life. Time limits have done wonders for the amount of time I have available for writing. The only problem I’ve encountered is that the time limits haven’t actually affected the amount of writing I do. :-) Seems I’m not too fond of writing when I don’t want to write.
• Friends in need. But only friends in need. Not friends in want, or friends who are bored. Or even friends who think they need a friend’s shoulder to cry on when they’d be better off drying their tears and getting on with their lives. However, I’m not talking about you, I promise (whichever of my dear friends you happen to be). ;-)
• Family. There’s nothing as important, and yet, I find it easier to say no to family than to anyone else who tries to interrupt. The unfortunate part of this is that it should be harder. But I’m practicing being better at saying yes. Time limits, remember? They aren’t just for business, you know.

Do I have my priorities right? I don’t know, but I think it fits me and my goals, so yeah, maybe my priorities are exactly what they need to be. And if they’re not, then next week I can change them again. As my mother likes to remind me, people are in a constant state of change. How or who you are today may not be what you are tomorrow. Your priorities and goals should reflect this.

So, what’s allowed to interrupt your writing? Seriously, I’d like to know. :-)

For those people who believe you have to force yourself to work through just about anything: It’s easy to understand your own processes but almost impossible to understand another’s. Even I find myself thinking a friend’s method can’t be right, can’t be the best way, because I know my way is best. Only the truth is, my way is best for me, and maybe not even that. My way is best for me sometimes, and my other ways are best for me at other times.

Today, I can’t concentrate on working, because I’ve had some bad news about my grandfather. It’s not the worst possible news, but it could be at any time, and that keeps my mind from settling on anything long enough to focus. And without focus, I’m not worth much.

My ability (my need) to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else is my greatest strength (and my most damning weakness) as a writer. Because if the thing I’m focused on is not my writing for the day, then my writing isn’t going to get done.

I’ve tried to change my ways, for too long. There’s a point you reach when you have to stop working against your natural tendencies and starting working with them. I think I’ve reached that point. But I’ve also noticed that it’s just as hard to set up a method based on something you know and feel but can’t quite understand as it is to set up a method you think should work but never does.

Tell me to sit in my chair and write and I’ll ignore you. I’ve learned my lessons about writing, and for me, if I force myself to write when I can’t, I hate writing. I hate it with enough passion to avoid it as long as possible. And then I write, and I realize how much I love to write. How much I depend on it to keep me balanced.

As I’ve said before, some days are slow days, and there’s no getting around that fact. But lucky for me, some days aren’t. Over the past few days, I’ve been writing through my fingers. Every time I walk by my computer, I have to take a moment to sit down and write, even when I don’t really have time for it.

It’s led me to wonder what kinds of things can trigger a spell like that. For me, it was getting back on the bike after a few weeks off–literally. I ride a bike for my daily exercise and I’d let myself slack off. Going back to my nightly routine seems to have helped a lot. So, for those of you reading this who might not believe it, exercise really does make a difference. Not only do I feel less tired (and that’s after just three days back on the bike), I feel–no, I AM–more productive. I’ve doubled my daily writing production, and that will always be worth thirty minutes of my time.

As a side note here, I’ve noticed this phenomenon in the past, and told myself never again would I skip my exercise. It’s easier said than done, however, and I’ve fallen out of my energy-boosting exercise habit more than once over the past two (or three?) years.

I always tell myself it won’t happen again, yet invariably it does. So maybe this time, by choosing to write it down, I’ll have the strength to stick with it.

Writing seems to hold more slow days than fast for me. I don’t write in “flow” and I don’t write sequentially either, most of the time. For me, those “getting lost in the moment” moments happen few and far between. Yet, somehow, most days I do write something, and on some days I’ve been known to write ten to twelve pages of manuscript. Most often, it’s early in the process, when the book is still new and I haven’t figured it all out yet.

In fact, once I figure it all out, I’m sure to slow down, and by the time I’m within scenes of the end, I’m at a crawl. That’s where I’m at right now. The book is done as far as my mind is concerned, so why spend all this time getting out on paper what I already know happens?

Of course, when writing a book with the goal of publishing that book, getting it down on paper is the most important part of the process. :-)