I have an excuse for everything, sometimes even two or three, and when it comes to things I have to do, being a self-employed writer/seamstress mucking about waiting to finish college, I have a list of excuses longer than James Joyce's Ulysses, especially since I always have "another day" to push it back to.
And yet, here I am one month into a story and only 3,000 words in. Which, going back to James Joyce, might not be bad for a certain Irish author, but is right terrible for someone with an excess of time, a room of quiet, and no substance abuse problem to speak of. (Which, granted, might be the problem.)
But for those of us with no desire to pick up the bottle and replicate the lives of the authors of yore, we have to figure out how to make time (and keep time!) in a world where the Internet, cell phones, television, and shopping sales are all calling out our names.
For me, the wake up call came from trying a thousand things other people suggested, discovering none of them worked, and adapting them to work for me.
"Write 4,000 words a day, and don't stop until you do!"
Various authors have cried this out to me as a muddle through the rough draft of a short story. "Two pages!" "Four hours!" "Just opening a Word document counts!" All of which are good and well (except for the last suggestion), but were not good for me.As much as I wish I could sit down and pound out 2,000/3,000/4,000 words a day, I cannot. I am simply not used to sitting still that long. Furthermore, I'm not used to sitting down for more than an hour at a time. During long classes in college I lived for the five minute lecture breaks where I could stretch my legs, and being a seamstress means I'm rarely sitting for too long, even as I'm sewing: there are always things to cut, dresses to try on, and patterns to wrangle.
