Having time to write after a long writing hiatus is like ... it's ... well ... I don't have a good analogy. Damn. What I do have is a very tidy apartment. I have a desk clear of everything but the essentials of what I'm working on right now and the tools I need to work on it. The "work," meaning the writing ... not going so well.Actually, it's not going at all.
It's the curse of all the time in the world. Of course, I don't actually have all the time in the world, I have less than three weeks until semester starts again, so I know I will eventually get around to the whole writing fiction thing again soon. But in the meantime it's amazing how quickly my apartment can get clean. Which of course makes me feel like a slob for letting it slide for the past four months. Ah well, hindsight.
For now the goal is to keep the apartment this clean and tidy -- not make it cleaner, no seriously, it doesn't need to be cleaner, stop, put down the sponge now -- and get into the swing of writing. Writing a lot. Lots of a lot. Not just hours a day but many words per hour. Yeah. That's the goal.
I missed NaNoWriMo based on my crazypants schedule. Now's the time to go it alone, without several hundred other writers tagging along for the experience. I've also got several editing projects that I'm working on. This is how I work: lots at once. It's what I refer to as the academia model opposed to the logical model.
The logical model says work on one thing until it's finished -- don't split your energy or your focus.
The academia model says take five classes with five different projects and focuses and just alternate which you work on, have a bunch of small deadlines and you'll get through everything -- splitting your energy or focus doesn't matter so long as you focus on what is in front of you now.
No, it's not terribly logical, but what can I say? I do well in that academia/student-life model.
Not only do I do well with many projects, but what I've found myself having to explain to quite a few people lately is that it's not a hobby. When it's not a side project on top of all your other projects for work, family, life, personal hygiene and automobile maintenance, then it's your main project and you can put a lot into it. It's not an issue.
The issue, it seems, is getting started again after completely changing gears.
Photo credit: pOOfkAt (Katherine Choate)on flickr
