What It Takes

I am sitting at Tryst, having had a lovely burst of writing energy for the last two hours. I have, I'm afraid, done fairly little work on this book proposal since I set myself the October 3 deadline. The weekend was the weekend -- and I swore when I became a freelancer five years ago that except for in the face of emergency deadlines, I would maintain weekends and evenings as no-work times. Its too easy to let your work creep into every facet of your life when you work at home, and so I'm strict about working during normal business hours. (There is part of me that worries that this is a bit of an excuse . . . but by and large it works for me. I guess partly because it does successfully force me to work during the week days, and not leave work until the last minute, which not every writer I know is good about doing.)

Monday, I hosted a birthday luncheon, so with cooking and eating and cleaning up afterwards that took up the whole day. Tuesday I sat down in front of the computer and managed to do a little editing, and a great deal of online research, but actual writing somehow eluded me -- possibly because I had to teach a pilates class at 7 AM, and again at 1:30, so the day was kind of broken up. In addition, getting up at 6:30 just KILLS me, and I I was vaguely sleepy all day. I've found that the number one necessity for a good writing day is that I'm thoroughly well-rested.

And so, that brings us today. I am out of the house -- another boon to getting writing done -- and the last two hours has seen a solid 1000 words of writing on the "outline" section of my book proposal.

When writing flows you just wish you could bottle the feeling. What is it that sometimes makes it all work? The thing is, I am smart enough to know that it's not all that mysterious. There is this fantasy about writing that sometimes you're just in the mood and sometimes you're not. Sometimes, at 3 AM, or when you have the right amount of bourbon in your system, or when you're suddenly inspired, then that is the time to write, and you can't force it otherwise. But I think that's a fantasy that only those who write occasionally maintain.

Because I know what goes into a good writing day: exactly the things I listed above. Plenty of sleep and no other distractions to be found. About half the time I plan on working outside of my house, I talk myself into not doing so -- perhaps I'm waiting for a phone call, or I don't want to spend the money at a coffee shop, or I'm not in the mood for the 15-minute walk or any other excuse I can come up with. And I believe those excuses when I make them, promising myself that I will work just as much with my butt in that Aeron chair at home. But it's a myth. And I have to remember that.

Sleep and no distractions. That's all it takes. . .