An Automaton on Autopilot

Here’s my ROW80 (Round 3) weekend update.  As I’ve mentioned in my last post, I’ve been trying to maximize the productivity of my story-crafting time during the work-week, as I work forty-hours a week at a “regular job” and only have a few hours to spend on it each evening.  Often times at work, I find myself daydreaming about my story-world; my mind drifting into those fantastical realms of my imagination while my body does the monotonous work before me as if it were an automaton on autopilot.  My employer and coworkers see only my quiet dedication to the task at hand, praising my strong work-ethic and high production output.  Little do they know that I’m just “going through the motions” while my mind is off in another world.  Ironically, I do my best imagining while at work and wish I were home writing during those times.  It would seem that my creativity is most active in the mornings, especially after the first cup of coffee has kicked in.  I find myself planning and plotting and sneaking notes into my mobile app, eagerly awaiting those few hours I have planned for myself that evening.  Some days, this anticipation is the only thing that gets me through the workday.  Yet, despite my best intentions, my evening writing sessions haven’t been going as planned lately.  Over the past few weeks, my writing output has decreased significantly.  This is somewhat due to work fatigue, but mostly it’s just me wasting a lot of valuable writing-time doing “story-research” on the Internet.  Being that I only have about ten hours of quality writing time each work-week and about eight hours during the weekend, I’ve decided to do most of my “story-researching” on the Internet on the weekends, after my creative-wells have run dry.  That way, I can get the most out of my limited writing-time while also allocating the necessary research-time needed for my story-world.  To do this, I’ve create a new “sacred space” for my writing sessions.  During this work-week, I’ve been doing all of my writing away from my desktop computer (with its Internet temptation) and onto my new laptop (which I don’t use for web-surfing), which is now situated on its own dedicated workstation table.  This change in routine has been working pretty good so far this week as I have written a few random practice-scenes and have worked on the back-story of one of my heroines.  This change has been good.  I’ve also started doing a lot more outlining on graph-paper and have compiled a few more character sheets in the process.  I enjoy writing with pencil and paper sometimes, especially as I’m lying in bed, scratching out ideas before the clock tells me its bedtime again.  After all, its a workday tomorrow, and I need to get plenty of rest so I can “go through the motions” again while daydreaming at work.

Conan had entered the part of the city reserved for the temples.  On all sides of him they glittered white in the starlight — snowy marble pillars and golden domes and silver arches, shrines of Zamora’s myriad strange gods.  He did not trouble his head about them; he knew that Zamora’s religion, like all things of civilized, long-settled people, was intricate and complex, and had lost most of the pristine essence in a maze of formulas and rituals.  He had squatted for hours in the courtyards of the philosophers, listening to the arguments of theologians and teachers, and come away in a haze of bewilderment, sure of only one thing; that they were all touched in the head.  His gods were simple and understandable; Crom was their chief, and he lived on a great mountain, whence he sent forth doom and death.  It was useless to call on Crom, because he was a gloomy, savage god, and he hated weaklings.  But he gave a man courage at birth, and the will and might to kill his enemies, which, in the Cimmerian’s mind, was all any god should be expected to do.
— (Excerpt from The Tower of the Elephant, by Robert E. Howard)

That’s all for now.  Keep the Fire Burning!
Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community…

Creating Time and Space

I live a secret double-life.  Each workday, I dutifully trek-off to work at my "regular job", trading my limited time and valuable effort for meager wages.  I’m a chemist at a chemical-analysis lab, making bulk chemical reagents and custom standards for science industries.  My department is very profitable for the company, so management let’s us do our work in peace.  My coworkers are math-wizards, science-nerds and techo-geeks.  They’re all super-nice people, but they’re very much left-brain thinkers.  Together, we all spend the majority of the sunlit day in a climate-controlled lab doing science and stuff, until finally, the day is over and we can all go home to our real lives.  It’s a decent job as far as “regular jobs” go, and it pays the bills, but it’s not my passion.  I’m just a cog in the machine of someone else’s dream.  Each evening, I come home to my other job — my "dream job" — my fledgling authorship career job, spending what's left of the remainder of the day on story-crafting, building my empire in my spare time.  Essentially, I'm a wage-slave by day and an author-entrepreneur by night.   That’s my secret double-life.  None of my friends, family, or coworkers know of my writing ambitions or aspirations.  They’ll know someday, once I’ve actually written and published something, but until then, I just keep it to myself.  Of course, all of you in the “writers blogosphere” know my secret life.  That’s okay, I don’t mind.  You understand me.  You’re all right-brained creative types on a similar journey, so I don’t mind sharing my writing aspiration secrets with y’all. 

I wish I had more time to write during the day, especially in the mornings when I’m most creative.  My “regular job” is quiet and repetitive, so I often find myself daydreaming about my “Sword & Sorcery” story-world while I’m working; my body on autopilot while my mind is in a far-away, fantastical land.  Often times, I’m stealthily tapping my story-ideas into my mobile app while I’m pretending to work.  I can’t help it, I have a creative mind that’s always active.  In the evening of the workday, I’ve designated at least two hours of “story-crafting” time for myself, whether it be outlining, plotting, reading, researching or writing towards my story-world.  That’s the only thing that gets me through my work-week.  On the weekends, I have a lot more free time, so I try to get as much writing done as my life will allow.  Four hours is my goal for Saturdays and Sundays; more if I'm on a roll (although, my creative-well usually needs replenishing by then).  You may have noticed lately that I’ve had trouble posting Wednesday updates lately, which is either caused by work-week fatigue or by the fact that I would rather spend my limited time story-crafting instead of posting .  Posting on the weekends has been easier to accomplish for me lately, so I haven’t missed any yet, although this one is pretty late on Sunday evening.  I plan on getting back on the bi-weekly schedule soon.  We’ll see if that is the case this Wednesday, right?  It’s all about creating time for myself.

I’ve also been having trouble with my word-count goals.  My writing output has been low.  Oh, I’ve been doing plenty of planning and reading and researching, but not a lot of actual writing has been getting done lately.  I do the “butt in the seat, hands on the keyboard” routine, and usually get about a paragraph into my writing before my Inner-Editor takes me off on some research, fact-finding tangent on the Internet.  He’ll suggest that my battle scenes need more authenticity, so I’ll end up watching two-hours worth of “sword-fighting technique” YouTube videos until my bedtime comes.  Important research for sure, especially for a “Sword & Sorcery” novel (I rationalize to myself), but not a lot of actual writing has been getting done lately.  The Internet, for all it’s good, can be a time-suck.  I came up with a solution that I’m going to try next week (and beyond if it works).  I’ve decided to do all of my writing on my new laptop instead of my desktop; the difference being that I don’t do any web-surfing on my new laptop, only on my desktop.  This will remove the tempting, attractive distraction of researching while writing.  If I need to research a scene, I’ll just make a note in brackets to [research this] and continue writing.  I have Scrivener on both computers, so I share my manuscript files through Dropbox.  I cleaned off an old computer desk that I had and set it up for my laptop.  This way, when I do my “butt in the seat, hands on the keyboard” routine, I won’t have any excuse or distractions from actually writing.  I’ve created for myself a creative space exclusively for writing.  Creating time and space.  You see what I did there?  Just like the blog title. =)

Steel flashed and the throng surged wildly back out of the way.  In their flight they knocked over the single candle and the den was plunged into darkness, broken by the crash of upset benches, drums of flying feet, shouts, oaths of people tumbling over one another, and a single strident yell of agony that cut the din like a knife.  When the candle was relighted, most of the guests had gone out by doors and broken windows, and the rest huddled behind stacks of wine-kegs and under tables.  The barbarian was gone; the center of the room deserted except for the gashed body of the Kothian.  The Cimmerian, with the unerring instinct of the barbarian, had killed his man in the darkness and confusion.
— (Excerpt from The Tower of the Elephant, by Robert E. Howard)

That’s all for now.  Keep the Fire Burning!
Please visit the other writers in the ROW80 Community…