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Balance

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RobJN:
We have a TV in the house, and it is usually only used to play video games, DVDs, or the occasional Spurs game. The missus and I both don't watch TV, except at work. The time most people spend watching TV, we use to write -- our work schedules don't quite match up, so she usually writes a bit in the morning before she takes me to work, and I write between the time I get home and she gets up to get ready for work. When we have days off together (when we're not prowling the bookstores), we'll sit in the same room, she on her computer in one corner of the office, me on mine in the other, and we might not say more than a few words over the course of the day. But clackity-clack go the keyboards.

It's nice being married to a fellow writer (but then, that's sort of how we met in the first place, being writers).

One of the bits of advice I've heard is to pick a time to write, and then stick to it. It's hard, staring at the blank screen, for an hour, or hour and a half, but stare at it enough times in a row, and the brain will get the message. I find more often than not, once I get home from work, something winds up on the ol' word processor after I sit down at my computer. Sometimes, it's even good!  :D

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:

--- Quote from: Starbeam on July 14, 2009, 11:39:01 PM ---Anyone have suggestions on how to figure out any kind of schedule to get some kind of balance between reality and writing?  It's not too much of a problem now in the summer; I get a half day off on Fridays, and there's not much on tv now.  But during the fall/winter, I seem to get nothing done.  And I can't really get rid of anything.  I basically go to work, come home and exercise, by the time I'm done with that, dinner's ready, then I have to shower, and by that time, it's usually about 8.  Which during the fall/winter is when I start to spend time with my b/f, and we watch tv to unwind for bed.

--- End quote ---

What works for me is one night a week is writing night, I come home from work, eat, and write until time to fall asleep. I can usually get a couple of thousand words out, and that has happened most weeks (I try to catch up in advance if I am going to have visitors) for the last thirteen years.

What matters is getting the words down.  Doing it every day works for some people - would not for me, but if you want to write a novel a year, whether that's 2,000 words a week or a few hundred words a day (or, like Iain Banks, a novel written in three or four concentrated weeks and the rest of the year playing Civ) seems irrelevant.

meg_evonne:

--- Quote from: RobJN on July 15, 2009, 02:01:13 AM ---When we have days off together (when we're not prowling the bookstores), we'll sit in the same room, she on her computer in one corner of the office, me on mine in the other, and we might not say more than a few words over the course of the day. But clackity-clack go the keyboards.
--- End quote ---
I guess there is always instant messenger!  LOL

belial.1980:

--- Quote from: meg_evonne on July 15, 2009, 12:31:03 AM ---Was the breakup related in part to your need to write, Beliel?

--- End quote ---

As much as I'd like to say, "I suffered for my art" LOL; no that was never an issue.

RobJN:

--- Quote from: meg_evonne on July 15, 2009, 04:19:57 PM --- I guess there is always instant messenger!  LOL

--- End quote ---

We did that for two years before we actually met, so thankfully it's been burned out of our systems ;) Nowadays, she just throws crumpled up rough drafts at me when she wants to get my attention....

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