Perfect writing days are just like unicorns and pots of gold at the end of the rainbow, we've all heard of them but no one's actually had one.
My dream:
Wake up at 5:30 work out hard 1 hour, shower
Make kids great nutritional breakfast, get them off to school 8:30
Write for the next 6 hours with no writer's block and a neverending cup of hot coffee and coffee cake.
Get dinner started, get kids from bus 4pm
Do publicity stuff 1 hour till dinner
Interact with family till 7:30 kids bedtime
Half hour of publicity
Spouse and me time
Reality:
5:45 three year old taps my forehead to wake me and tell me he needs chocolate milk
6-8:30 continually tell kids (4 of them) to get ready, eat breakfast, do homework, while constantly breaking up fights and reheating my first cup of coffee
8:30 bring 4 year old to preschool
9:00 think about working out but run whatever stupid errands have to be done that day
11:30 back home feed 3 year old who doesn't go to any school yet
12:00 have 3 year old watch Thomas the train while I try to write
12:05 give up trying to write because 3 year old keeps interrupting
1:30 put 3 year old down for nap
1:40 start writing
2:00 people whose calls you didn't have time to answer earlier start calling. Ignore most but there's always one I have to take.
3:00 start writing
3:45 3 year old wakes up
4:00 get other kids from bus
4:30 pick up 3 year old from preschool
5:00 make dinner
5:30 put spouse in charge and start writing till 7:30 but unless I leave the house am usually interrupted several times.
7:30 kids to bed and spouse and me time because I'm too tired to think.
It's no wonder it takes a year to write a book!
What's your dream day vs reality?
Seems to me that the number of interruptions, distractions and opportunities to procrastinate increase to exactly occupy whatever free time you may think you had.
ReplyDeleteI moved out to West Africa six months ago confident that without the daily grind of UK life I could easily double my writing output.
No travelling to and from the coffee bar where I previously wrote every day. No TV. No phone. What could possibly distract me?
Whatever it is, it's very good at it!
So true Mark. Even when I set aside a few hours just for writing I allow unimportant things to distract me. I blame fear of failure:)
ReplyDelete