Sign up to hear about new releases and other exciting news from Annie Bellet.

Posts Tagged ‘excuses’

Productivity Is Overrated

I haven’t written a single thing all week except to jot down a few notes here and there for my novels. In terms of life though, I’ve been very productive, so I suppose it’s a trade-off. I built my shelves, finally. All that remains for my office to be complete is for my old computer to get raided for its information (such as my first novel that needs edits) and for the new computer to be fully installed with the programs I need. I’d like this to get done by the end of next week. I’ve been using it as an excuse not to do much in the way of writing. It’s a poor excuse.

I’m a tomorrow person. I know this, and I do what I can to work around the constant desire to just “do it tomorrow”. Actually, I did get some writing-ish stuff done, since I managed to get some comic things sent off to my artist. However, it’s not really as much as I’d hoped. So for next week I’m setting some goals. I will meet these goals. They aren’t that lofty or interesting, but I have to get going. Once I have momentum, it will take care of itself, but I’ve been putting things off too long.

Weekend goals: Finish review of Cooking Mama for my friend’s website. Rework Predators plot outline (I’ve had some different ideas, so I’m going to rewrite it).

Next week’s goals: 10 pages of Predators. At least 10 pages of Chwedl written. Type up and edit first layer of Past Dark. Finish Bad Day comic (I can do this in one day, I just have to buckle down and do it).

I’d love to be doing a chapter of each book a week, but it isn’t going to happen. I should be realistic about things and put off Predators until I’ve got Chwedl done and ready for first round of readers. Then I could buckle down and get Predators done in time to be sent out once they’ve gotten back to me about Chwedl. I may do this. But I want to get the outline done at least. We’ll see. I may have too much project on my plate. Fortunately for me, it takes me far less time to write pages and pages of comic than it does for my poor artist to concept and draw the stuff up. I can get layers ahead of her in a day or two without a problem, so I’m not worried about her outpacing me in terms of the comic.

So that’s the story of this week. Exciting, isn’t it? I’ll be more productive. You know, tomorrow. But hey, shelves! My to-read shelf has 58 books on it.

Excuses and The Writer’s Space

So, I have two novel outlines. I have a brand new computer. I haven’t done anything in a week.

I’ve been using the “no access to my dead harddrive” excuse in order to not work on the ‘Dangerous’ editing/rewrite. It’s a problem I could fix just by poking the people who have computer know-how and making them boot my drive with their magic computer powers. Instead I keep letting them get distracted with things like work, school, and Jade Empire.

I’ve been using the excuse of not getting much sleep and then being out of town to avoid working on my novels. These excuses are poor and thin. I keep letting people distract me or making other plans and my writing time slowly disappears. I’ve used the same excuses to avoid writing on the two comics I’m working on.

Solution? I think I’m going to have to be a little more stubborn about writing time. Which means saying no to friends who want to do things during the day. And recognizing my own excuses for what they are. My plan for the rest of this week is to get my office set up again and get comic bits sent off to my artist so she has something to work on as well.

I have a lot of books. This means that my office, which is the place in my home I can go to close away the outside world and its distractions, is currently full of books with very little extra space. I went to Ikea and got new shelves for the rearranging of the office, so the books should get off the floor and where they belong soon. Having space is important. Having a working computer that isn’t shared is also important. I like to close myself away to write. I need to be able to put on music, lock the door, arrange my notebooks and research around myself, and turn the eyes inward towards the mindscape of my stories. It’s vital to my writing process. I don’t understand those people who can write in cafes or pizza parlours or bars. People are too interesting, I like to watch them too much. There is no way I can be around them and still interacting on a meaningful level with the things in my head.

I’ve only lost a week to excuses. Sometimes having no deadlines isn’t actually a blessing. Well, I suppose I do have a deadline, but it’s so far away, it feels unreal. If I don’t get on this now, however, December will have come all too quickly. I’ll post the first couple paragraphs of both novels by the end of next week. There, that’s sort of like a deadline. Time to get my room in order, both the real one and the one in my head.