Pages

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Sometimes it's just hard work....

Well, I have been working hard on a longer piece of writing than I usually write. It's a chapter book and I am over 150 pages into it. I don't think it will be much past 200 pages, so I find myself nearing the end......which is hard.

How does a crazily busy story queen with three children and a full time job manage to find the time to write both picture books and chapter books (and do laundry as well?) In case you aren't asking yourself this, I am asking it on your behalf, it comes down to time management.
NOT!
It comes down to, really, the ability to dream.
(okay....a little bit is time management, too.)

Dreaming is easy, believing the the dream is another thing....but more on that later.

What I really wanted to write about today is the time management part. Yeah, I know, the boring stuff. It's much more fun to imagine bits of faerie dust floating through the air....breathing them in and feeling the dream come to life inside your mind........
But......the time management is important because, well, without it, we would get nothing done. I know this for a fact, since I often get nothing done. But I have whipped myself into a type of routine. For as disorganized as I can be sometimes, my imagination seems to respond well to a routine. My routine is simple: A page a day.

That's right. A Page a Day. (This only goes for my longer pieces, the picture books need to be (for me) written in one sitting.) So, as I struggled for a while to get a LOT of work done on my little novel on my "writing day" (Fridays), I became frustrated because I just couldn't recapture the essence of the book by only writing on it once a week. So, I cut myself some slack, which I have a tendency to do, and said, "Self, why don't you just try to crank out just one page per day on this thingy. Just a page a day. Now I know you want to finish it sooner rather than later, but if you do a page a day, just think....in three months that's 90 pages. That's not bad, really...."
So, my Self liked this idea and I have been faithfully cranking out a page per day since August (I had already finished a chapter or two prior.)

Hooray! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It will get finished!
I guess, for me, I am more of a tortoise than a hare when it comes to something like this....slow and steady.

So, those of you who struggle....try a page a day. Just one page a day......



HRH