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matociquala, you'll see an interesting discussion about how freelance writers spend their day. I started thinking, how do we day job writers spend our day? I was thinking about doing some work with schedules anyway, so I thought I would talk about what writing is like for one of us who have to/choose to work other jobs. Maybe so I can finish this rewrite before the year is out...
Here we go!
5 am: Pry self out of bed. Feed cats, eat breakfast, put on workout clothes.
6:10 am: Hit the exercise bike at the gym. Wear weights. This is my fiction reading time. Shower, make self glamorous, drop The Man off at his place of employment.
7:30 am: Coffee! He doesn't drink it, so I outsource. Morning stop now at superlative small shop called Coffee Talk not far from campus.
( A Day in the Life of an English Language Acquisition Coordinator )
( After Work )
( Aren't Weekends Great for Writing? )
Wow! It looks like I am a machine! But I have to be. Because I have to/want to work, and I have to/want to write. That's a fragile place to be.
Sometimes it's hard to sympathize with folks who don't work, and complain about deadlines or not getting things done. Just writing seems like such a luxury to me! And I know it's also work, yet, I too must generate proposals, promote myself, and do it all in a significantly smaller window.
I know it's my greed and my debt-to-bone ratio that keeps me working, and they probably envy me my steady income, insurance, that sort of thing. That's okay. I envy them their time. On the other hand, I need to do something that makes me feel like I'm contributing. For me, working with students is that.
No solution is perfect for a writing career, but it is interesting that whatever circumstances we have in our lives, we manage to find time to do it somehow.
I'm very lucky because I get the added insight of what freelance life is like occasionally on extended Christmas and summer breaks. I work this summer for six weeks, but there's a lot of time in there where I'm not working. An academic is a little amphibious and I'm grateful for that. If I were just teaching, instead of teaching and administrating, I might have the best of both worlds. So I have sympathy for both free lancers and people who are more full time than me. Don't kid yourself. Managing your own time can be both awesome and terrible!
And yes, this exercise was very helpful to me, as I can see now that I am using my time pretty well overall. What I need rather than tighter scheduling, is goal setting, so I can get to a certain point with my writing each day. I'll think about that.
I'd be really interested to hear from others of you who write and work about how you manage your time. Unless you're supposed to be working, of course... :)
Catherine
matociquala, you'll see an interesting discussion about how freelance writers spend their day. I started thinking, how do we day job writers spend our day? I was thinking about doing some work with schedules anyway, so I thought I would talk about what writing is like for one of us who have to/choose to work other jobs. Maybe so I can finish this rewrite before the year is out...Here we go!
5 am: Pry self out of bed. Feed cats, eat breakfast, put on workout clothes.
6:10 am: Hit the exercise bike at the gym. Wear weights. This is my fiction reading time. Shower, make self glamorous, drop The Man off at his place of employment.
7:30 am: Coffee! He doesn't drink it, so I outsource. Morning stop now at superlative small shop called Coffee Talk not far from campus.
( A Day in the Life of an English Language Acquisition Coordinator )
( After Work )
( Aren't Weekends Great for Writing? )
Wow! It looks like I am a machine! But I have to be. Because I have to/want to work, and I have to/want to write. That's a fragile place to be.
Sometimes it's hard to sympathize with folks who don't work, and complain about deadlines or not getting things done. Just writing seems like such a luxury to me! And I know it's also work, yet, I too must generate proposals, promote myself, and do it all in a significantly smaller window.
I know it's my greed and my debt-to-bone ratio that keeps me working, and they probably envy me my steady income, insurance, that sort of thing. That's okay. I envy them their time. On the other hand, I need to do something that makes me feel like I'm contributing. For me, working with students is that.
No solution is perfect for a writing career, but it is interesting that whatever circumstances we have in our lives, we manage to find time to do it somehow.
I'm very lucky because I get the added insight of what freelance life is like occasionally on extended Christmas and summer breaks. I work this summer for six weeks, but there's a lot of time in there where I'm not working. An academic is a little amphibious and I'm grateful for that. If I were just teaching, instead of teaching and administrating, I might have the best of both worlds. So I have sympathy for both free lancers and people who are more full time than me. Don't kid yourself. Managing your own time can be both awesome and terrible!
And yes, this exercise was very helpful to me, as I can see now that I am using my time pretty well overall. What I need rather than tighter scheduling, is goal setting, so I can get to a certain point with my writing each day. I'll think about that.
I'd be really interested to hear from others of you who write and work about how you manage your time. Unless you're supposed to be working, of course... :)
Catherine