A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Twenty

As I mentioned yesterday, my daily writing is most often accomplished late in the day, and I would like to get to a point where I am doing more work throughout the day.  First, I do want to be producing more work, and I also know that I feel better when I feel more productive.  Writing a poem a day is a lot, if I think of it objectively, but it feels like I can push myself further in a way that would be positive for me, so I want to proceed in that direction.

I realize that this is largely about building a new set of habits around my work.  I need to instill the habit of doing the work in the morning, so I am waking up and getting myself going.  It is something that I've done a bit in the past few months, but I think I can make it a more consistent habit, and I think that doing so will have other positive impacts on my life.  I think it is likely to make me feel much more focused and productive, and to possibly improve how I feel about other things, when I know I have already made my day count in some sense.

It will take work to get myself to do this, and I didn't get there today, but the fact is that I didn't get to writing every day without real effort, and it has taken a long time to get beyond just doing the writing just to get it done.  Early on in the attempt, I know I was writing a lot of things that never went anyplace and likely are just garbage at this point.  I do have a few things that are real gems, but most of it wound up just being the spinning of the wheels, doing the writing to make sure I was doing it.  That has served a purpose, bringing me to a point where I do feel that I am being truly productive in my work most every day.  Even writing a poem that will not necessarily go beyond a first draft and never sees print is not an idle effort, though I think my average has been pretty good and rising as I've continued.  The point I am making is that I am now feeling I've gotten to a place where I feel that I am engaging in serious work daily, and my goal now is just to expand and do more of that.

Tomorrow, I'll again push to get myself working early.  I may have some thoughts on just how I plan to push myself to do that, and I am going to commit to writing a second piece tomorrow, even if it winds up being lousy and even if it does not get written in the morning.  We shall see what happens, though...

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