SEEKING AN EXTENSION

From August 20, 2009:

Gotta crank it up several notches. I am still not fitting in enough writing time each day—at least, not enough to make this an occupation, rather than a hobby. That’s a tricky transition to make. I’ve had more than ten years of feeling satisfied writing when I can. If I made some progress on a story idea one afternoon, wonderful! However, it almost seemed like a bonus, not so much an expectation.

I’ve been writing about six days a week, but the time each day needs to be extended. I need my productivity to fall somewhere between Stephen King and John Hughes. In a recent column in Entertainment Weekly, King noted that we spends 3.5 hours a day writing. (Emails and such are separate.) In a tribute to John Hughes, a colleague noted that one evening Hughes was ostensibly rewriting three pages of the screenplay for “Some Kind of Wonderful”. Come morning, Hughes had generated fifty pages—not for the movie at hand, but for “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”.

I would say I’m much more on the King end of the spectrum. Or I should be. Right now, three and a half hours of writing is a grind. Two days ago, I had a solid hour of writing in before 9 a.m. I didn’t get back to my laptop until after 5 p.m. It was hard to account for the eight-hour lapse. Now that kind of break seems absurd.

I still have to get over the myth that my living space—be it the house or the cottage—is not conducive to writing. I accomplish things in small flourishes; now I need to add some discipline and better work habits. Having my own schedule without immediate deadlines is entirely foreign. That said, it is time to get acclimated!