Your Time Is Ajar
Friday, March 6. 2009
Why do I seem to think I can squeeze ever more activities into my day without giving something up?- I've been trying to get back into running regularly for weeks now—I need to get into the best running shape of my life for Goofy's Race and a Half Challenge 2010, so I want to build up my endurance starting ASAP, even though the event is still over ten months away.
- I decided a few weeks ago that none of the existing clients for Twitter on Linux meet my needs (advanced filtering while supporting multiple simultaneous users), so I started writing my own in Python.
- I'm working on research for a presentation I plan to give at a simulation conference in Las Vegas in April. The subject matter is not simple, and it's going to take me a good bit of time to make a decent set of slides.
- I told a friend today I'd be willing to help with some grant writing "on the side."
Those items represent new claims on my time that I've been trying to address recently or will have to address in the near future. Now, what makes me think I can just add these new rocks to my jar—without taking some others out?
Yet, what could I take out? Full-time job? Nope, don't want to eat Ramen noodles. Family? Unh-unh, come with me if you want to live. Sleep? Usually the default candidate, but always ends up pwning me in the end. So...this is why I don't crank out at least 1,667 words of novelage per diem these days.
What to do: reduce and simplify. Remove things I don't really have to do. Refrain from committing time to anyone without a specific goal and mechanism for creating that time (i.e., identification of what I can eliminate or postpone in order to fit that "rock" into my schedule).
New rock: 2 hours per day minimum to be spent on writing. It's not really "new," actually; I've been meaning to commit to this one for awhile. But now it's going to be the fourth biggest rock (behind the three listed just above). And I'll have to pulverize everything else and just make it fit.
I need a bigger jar. Hmmm...surely through some advanced quantum mechanics research...
by Brent W. York
in Disney, Running, Time, Writing
at
14:08
| Comments (0)
| Google
| Share in LinkedIn
Why do I seem to think I can squeeze ever more activities into my day without giving something up?
Yet, what could I take out? Full-time job? Nope, don't want to eat Ramen noodles. Family? Unh-unh, come with me if you want to live. Sleep? Usually the default candidate, but always ends up pwning me in the end. So...this is why I don't crank out at least 1,667 words of novelage per diem these days.
What to do: reduce and simplify. Remove things I don't really have to do. Refrain from committing time to anyone without a specific goal and mechanism for creating that time (i.e., identification of what I can eliminate or postpone in order to fit that "rock" into my schedule).
New rock: 2 hours per day minimum to be spent on writing. It's not really "new," actually; I've been meaning to commit to this one for awhile. But now it's going to be the fourth biggest rock (behind the three listed just above). And I'll have to pulverize everything else and just make it fit.
I need a bigger jar. Hmmm...surely through some advanced quantum mechanics research...
- I've been trying to get back into running regularly for weeks now—I need to get into the best running shape of my life for Goofy's Race and a Half Challenge 2010, so I want to build up my endurance starting ASAP, even though the event is still over ten months away.
- I decided a few weeks ago that none of the existing clients for Twitter on Linux meet my needs (advanced filtering while supporting multiple simultaneous users), so I started writing my own in Python.
- I'm working on research for a presentation I plan to give at a simulation conference in Las Vegas in April. The subject matter is not simple, and it's going to take me a good bit of time to make a decent set of slides.
- I told a friend today I'd be willing to help with some grant writing "on the side."
Yet, what could I take out? Full-time job? Nope, don't want to eat Ramen noodles. Family? Unh-unh, come with me if you want to live. Sleep? Usually the default candidate, but always ends up pwning me in the end. So...this is why I don't crank out at least 1,667 words of novelage per diem these days.
What to do: reduce and simplify. Remove things I don't really have to do. Refrain from committing time to anyone without a specific goal and mechanism for creating that time (i.e., identification of what I can eliminate or postpone in order to fit that "rock" into my schedule).
New rock: 2 hours per day minimum to be spent on writing. It's not really "new," actually; I've been meaning to commit to this one for awhile. But now it's going to be the fourth biggest rock (behind the three listed just above). And I'll have to pulverize everything else and just make it fit.
I need a bigger jar. Hmmm...surely through some advanced quantum mechanics research...
by Brent W. York
in Disney, Running, Time, Writing
at
14:08
| Comments (0)
| Google
| Share in LinkedIn
Finishing the Race
Tuesday, March 3. 2009
Wow. It's becoming more and more vivid to me just how much harder it is to complete a novel than it is to start one. It reminds me of when I ran my first (and only, so far) marathon.
Typing "CHAPTER 1" is a great feeling. There's a new idea that must be committed to paper, possibilities explode inside one's brain, and the words tend to come quickly. NaNoWriMo thrives on this rush, encourages it. One sprints out of the chute, and is amazed to find it's possible to produce 50,000 words in only thirty days.
But then NaNoWriMo ends, there is the inevitable break from writing regularly that occurs over the holidays, and then it's difficult to get back on pace. Writing the beginning of a novel, like running the first third of a race, is easy, if one has prepared in even the most basic way. It's reaching "THE END" that is the true challenge.
I have over 50,000 words written of a novel that I expect to fall into the 80,000-90,000 word range, but I'm far from the halfway point in the process. I haven't even finished the first draft yet. In fact, I haven't even finished the first draft of the plot yet. NaNo emphasizes output over planning, so I somewhat feel as though I wrote myself to the edge of a cliff. I need to go back and chart my course a little more carefully, flesh out the characters and their underlying motivations, tighten up plot points and eliminate inconsistencies and "hand-waving."
I'm searching for my second wind, to help me get over that hump and back on my stride. I've made some good headway recently—I'm actually writing new prose again instead of just editing the existing pile—but I'm still only walking right now, sucking down some electrolytes, looking inside myself for the drive to go on and the answer to the perennial question: "Why did I think this was a good idea?"
The important thing now is to keep the level of enthusiasm up. If I do that, I'll keep working. I have to stay excited about the goal: Getting this damned book published, and getting at least one positive review. That outcome, if achieved, will make all the labor worthwhile. And perhaps even encourage me to start (and/or finish) the next novel.
I'm counting on the writer's high to kick in soon...and I know it will, it's buoyed me before. Just keep writing. The finish line isn't going anywhere. There it is, just over the horizon...
Wow. It's becoming more and more vivid to me just how much harder it is to complete a novel than it is to start one. It reminds me of when I ran my first (and only, so far) marathon.
Typing "CHAPTER 1" is a great feeling. There's a new idea that must be committed to paper, possibilities explode inside one's brain, and the words tend to come quickly. NaNoWriMo thrives on this rush, encourages it. One sprints out of the chute, and is amazed to find it's possible to produce 50,000 words in only thirty days.
But then NaNoWriMo ends, there is the inevitable break from writing regularly that occurs over the holidays, and then it's difficult to get back on pace. Writing the beginning of a novel, like running the first third of a race, is easy, if one has prepared in even the most basic way. It's reaching "THE END" that is the true challenge.
I have over 50,000 words written of a novel that I expect to fall into the 80,000-90,000 word range, but I'm far from the halfway point in the process. I haven't even finished the first draft yet. In fact, I haven't even finished the first draft of the plot yet. NaNo emphasizes output over planning, so I somewhat feel as though I wrote myself to the edge of a cliff. I need to go back and chart my course a little more carefully, flesh out the characters and their underlying motivations, tighten up plot points and eliminate inconsistencies and "hand-waving."
I'm searching for my second wind, to help me get over that hump and back on my stride. I've made some good headway recently—I'm actually writing new prose again instead of just editing the existing pile—but I'm still only walking right now, sucking down some electrolytes, looking inside myself for the drive to go on and the answer to the perennial question: "Why did I think this was a good idea?"
The important thing now is to keep the level of enthusiasm up. If I do that, I'll keep working. I have to stay excited about the goal: Getting this damned book published, and getting at least one positive review. That outcome, if achieved, will make all the labor worthwhile. And perhaps even encourage me to start (and/or finish) the next novel.
I'm counting on the writer's high to kick in soon...and I know it will, it's buoyed me before. Just keep writing. The finish line isn't going anywhere. There it is, just over the horizon...
Typing "CHAPTER 1" is a great feeling. There's a new idea that must be committed to paper, possibilities explode inside one's brain, and the words tend to come quickly. NaNoWriMo thrives on this rush, encourages it. One sprints out of the chute, and is amazed to find it's possible to produce 50,000 words in only thirty days.
But then NaNoWriMo ends, there is the inevitable break from writing regularly that occurs over the holidays, and then it's difficult to get back on pace. Writing the beginning of a novel, like running the first third of a race, is easy, if one has prepared in even the most basic way. It's reaching "THE END" that is the true challenge.
I have over 50,000 words written of a novel that I expect to fall into the 80,000-90,000 word range, but I'm far from the halfway point in the process. I haven't even finished the first draft yet. In fact, I haven't even finished the first draft of the plot yet. NaNo emphasizes output over planning, so I somewhat feel as though I wrote myself to the edge of a cliff. I need to go back and chart my course a little more carefully, flesh out the characters and their underlying motivations, tighten up plot points and eliminate inconsistencies and "hand-waving."
I'm searching for my second wind, to help me get over that hump and back on my stride. I've made some good headway recently—I'm actually writing new prose again instead of just editing the existing pile—but I'm still only walking right now, sucking down some electrolytes, looking inside myself for the drive to go on and the answer to the perennial question: "Why did I think this was a good idea?"
The important thing now is to keep the level of enthusiasm up. If I do that, I'll keep working. I have to stay excited about the goal: Getting this damned book published, and getting at least one positive review. That outcome, if achieved, will make all the labor worthwhile. And perhaps even encourage me to start (and/or finish) the next novel.
I'm counting on the writer's high to kick in soon...and I know it will, it's buoyed me before. Just keep writing. The finish line isn't going anywhere. There it is, just over the horizon...
(Page 1 of 2, totaling 7 entries)
» next page