LIST OF ARTICLES
|
How to Make Writing the Most Important Part of Your Day
Continued
- Do not voluntarily interrupt yourself. Don’t stop in the middle of your designated writing time to answer a phone call. You can always screen the message or check Caller ID and then pick up if you need to. Don’t sit down to write and then decide to surf the web or rearrange your home office or dust the top of the computer. Write. There are few tasks that can’t be postponed for an hour while you write. Plumbing emergencies are the exception.
- Pay attention to when during the day your brain is most alert. Some people wake up groggy and it takes hours for thinking to kick in. If you have the time to write but not the brain, this is when you schedule low-performance tasks: spell-checking your manuscript, researching bits you threw in the day before but hadn’t verified, and making sure that your last words of the previous day aren’t incoherent. Are you wide awake late at night? Then let others go to bed, and set aside that time to write. You’ll write better and faster when your brain is in high gear.
- It’s easier to write in a quiet place. But it’s not necessary. You need some uninterrupted thinking time for planning (try the bathroom late at night), but actual writing can be done in the middle of a busy family room as long as you focus. You can also write while on the sidelines at children’s games, or waiting at the doctor’s office, or taking public transportation. Or while sitting by a fountain on your lunch hour. Wherever you are is the perfect place to write if your goal is to get it done.
If you follow these suggestions, you can accomplish much more writing than you ever dreamed you could.
Pages: 1 2
|
