I am a teacher, which means I have summers off. Typically, my summers off include sleeping in, watching TV, reading books, and the occasional hour or two spent doing something productive like gardening.
I reluctantly cook and clean, often eating cereal rather than putting on "real" clothes and going out just to buy groceries.
It's a great life, but it doesn't exactly further my goals.
One of my goals is to be a writer, but since my usual summer mode only involves touching a pen to paper maybe once a week (sometimes I don't even use my computer for days!) I usually don't get much writing done, despite having so much free time.
So this summer I have set myself a goal. I am going to write (or edit or blog) 25 hours/week. I even use the stopwatch function on my phone so that I don't get into the habit of estimating or rounding up. And 25 hours a week is definitely doable. After all, now that I'm not working 40 hours/week (plus grading at night) I have the time. It shouldn't even be that hard, in theory. I don't have to write new words every day. I have three WIP that I can be editing as well as one project that is still in the first draft stage, so it's not like I don't have material to work with. And editing doesn't take too much creativity, so I can't claim "writer's block" to get out of doing my work.
But man, do I want to. I'm going the Monday-Sunday route (because I think of weeks that way, and also because I did no writing last Sunday and this is my first week), so I still have four more days to go. The problem is, I still have 17 hours of writing to fit into those four days, and I already feel like I am going crazy.
Just today I wrote some new material for From the Sky, I did some editing on The Talented as well as the sequel to that (which is as yet unnamed). And now I am blogging. And I honestly feel like I am going to crawl out of my skin.
And I don't know why. I really don't.
Is it because I am forcing myself to do this, making it a hard-and-fast goal as opposed to "I should try this?" Is it because I really want to be watching Teen Wolf right now and see this as an evil roadblock in the way of mindless entertainment?
Am I just going crazy?
If you made the transition from occasional writer to part- or full-time writer who actually has a weekly quota, please let me know how you did it. I don't know if I can spend another four hours total working on my WIPs, let alone four hours a day.
Help!
I reluctantly cook and clean, often eating cereal rather than putting on "real" clothes and going out just to buy groceries.
It's a great life, but it doesn't exactly further my goals.
One of my goals is to be a writer, but since my usual summer mode only involves touching a pen to paper maybe once a week (sometimes I don't even use my computer for days!) I usually don't get much writing done, despite having so much free time.
So this summer I have set myself a goal. I am going to write (or edit or blog) 25 hours/week. I even use the stopwatch function on my phone so that I don't get into the habit of estimating or rounding up. And 25 hours a week is definitely doable. After all, now that I'm not working 40 hours/week (plus grading at night) I have the time. It shouldn't even be that hard, in theory. I don't have to write new words every day. I have three WIP that I can be editing as well as one project that is still in the first draft stage, so it's not like I don't have material to work with. And editing doesn't take too much creativity, so I can't claim "writer's block" to get out of doing my work.
But man, do I want to. I'm going the Monday-Sunday route (because I think of weeks that way, and also because I did no writing last Sunday and this is my first week), so I still have four more days to go. The problem is, I still have 17 hours of writing to fit into those four days, and I already feel like I am going crazy.
Just today I wrote some new material for From the Sky, I did some editing on The Talented as well as the sequel to that (which is as yet unnamed). And now I am blogging. And I honestly feel like I am going to crawl out of my skin.
And I don't know why. I really don't.
Is it because I am forcing myself to do this, making it a hard-and-fast goal as opposed to "I should try this?" Is it because I really want to be watching Teen Wolf right now and see this as an evil roadblock in the way of mindless entertainment?
Am I just going crazy?
If you made the transition from occasional writer to part- or full-time writer who actually has a weekly quota, please let me know how you did it. I don't know if I can spend another four hours total working on my WIPs, let alone four hours a day.
Help!
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