Christmas was awesome this year! It was cold—that’s rare in Florida—but it was also warm with love and harmony in the family. Christmas is a very busy season, though; it’s hard to maintain a rhythm or routine for writing. I’m still learning how to write through a hectic schedule. Here are three skills I’m practicing:
1. Start Easy
More often than not, a writing session ends on a tough sentence. That’s statistics. Those sentences make it difficult to get going again. I’m used to beating my head against the sentence until I solve it, but you can’t do that when you’re trying to squeeze writing into a busy schedule. So, why not start with the sentence after that? Or the next paragraph? Or the next scene? You know what will happen later in the story, so write it now. You don’t know exactly how it will connect, but that frees you to write a rough first line and take off from there. If you have inspiration for a random part, run with it. Get some words on the page in the limited time you have.
This skill is especially important when working on the go, writing in a notebook or on your phone. Even if you don’t have your last paragraph there to look at, you can still continue the project. (Here’s a post about making poetry on the go.)
2. Write the First Word
It’s great when you have a few hours to write in peace, plenty of time to collect your thoughts, review where you left off, and get into the writing mode. When you have a busy schedule, though, you can’t wait for those perfect opportunities: they’ll never come! You might have only ten minutes or half an hour between tasks, events, and other obligations. You have to be able to seize those gaps. The first skill will help skip the transition from normal life to writing, but you can take that a step further. Ignore the transition. Grab your pen or open your document and write the first word that comes to your mind when you think of your project. The first word, literally! One line of free-writing will switch you into the writing mode instantly because you’re actually writing, and those random words you associate with your project will draw your stored information about the project to the forefront of your mind. Even if you’re writing something new, it’s based on some inspiration or goal.
3. Get Your Minute’s Worth
The first two skills break down the transition period so that you can start writing as soon as you have a minute. Once you’re going, don’t stop. Sometimes gaps are longer than you think. Imagine it’s 4:45 and you invited some friends over at 5:00. The house is ready for company, so you seize the 15-minute gap to write, but your friends are delayed and don’t show up until 5:30. What you thought was going to be a 15-minute writing session turned out to be 45 minutes. I hope you made the most of it. If you get stuck on a difficult sentence, move on. Leave it for editing! (I’m talking to myself here, so I better listen.) If you get distracted, brush it off. You have little time; you can maintain your focus a little longer.
I am by no means a master at any of these skills, (In fact, I’m terrible at them.) but I’m practicing. It’s one of my New Year’s Resolutions. I will master them by this time next year.
