The one thing you always hear people say when talking about writing, is that they just don't have the time to do it. I understand this sentiment very well. As a matter of fact, I fight against the time robbing gremlins on a daily basis. While I've managed to hold the writing time robbing gremlins off for a little over a year now, they are still keeping me from being from productive as I would like.
Last week I wrote at least 300 words a day, sometimes more, but at least 300 for a total of 2747 words. I'll admit that that's not a huge amount of writing for a week. Many people do that many words on the daily, but it doesn't appear that I will be there anytime in the near future. If you're one of those people, congrats and keep on pushing. You are an inspiration.
I lack that daily volume though. What I lack in daily volume, I try to make up with consistency. Writing everyday helps me not quit altogether. The part that sucks though, is that I don't have enough time to do the things that I know I should be doing in order to be successful. For example, there's this short story that really needs to go out. I've made a few editing passes and it's almost ready, but not quite. I blame my lack of time on that story not going out yet, but at the same time that's hard for me to accept. I know that I control my time, or my free time at least, and I know that I don't always use it wisely. That story should be done by now, but I have pushed it aside several times, put my daily words down and went to bed.
It's not like there aren't plans. There are plans aplenty. Almost everyday, while at work, I can't help but think that when I get home tonight I'm going to do write this or edit that. Ah, those are some grand plans, but anyway, life gets in the way as they say. There's always stuff to do at home and as any good general knows, even the best plans only last until the first shot is fired. So I get home, get distracted, hangout with the family, and end up going to write around ten at the earliest. It works for writing well enough, but editing, blogging, and anything writing related not focused on getting the daily word count has been a struggle. I can't help but to think that maybe I'm missing something.
Could that something be a deadline? I suppose it could be. Of course it may not be either, but it's worth a shot. The Magic Spreadsheet got me writing everyday, so maybe a self imposed deadline will light the fire under me that I need to get some editing done during the week. Let's say that by this time next week, I'll have that story sent out or at the very least ready to go out. That's the deadline then. Have the story ready to go by 10:30 next Monday night. It seems more than doable, so we'll see I guess.
I'll even do my best to let you know how it goes. If deadlines work for me, maybe they'll work for you too! What tricks do you use to get things done. Let me know in the comments. Thanks!
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