Writing. University. Buses. time.

I have not written any new fiction since finishing the novel. I'm starting to feel twitchy. I think tomorrow and Friday I will ignore the entire world while careswen is at work and find something to work on. I have five short stories in various stages of disarray, so I might well pick one of them up and run with.

I might go ahead and start the next novel. I had not planned to start writing on it until Old Blood's Fate was past it's final rewrite and ready to start collecting rejections, but...

I failed to pass a CLEP test yesterday, despite my score being considerably above what is required by most Universities. The U of M has extremely high standards. I initially thought I would be, well, bummed about it, but actually I'm just kind of, "meh," about the whole thing.

After studying how the buses run, I have come to the conclusion that I will need to engage in some creative time management if I'm ever going to get any writing done. I'm going to end up spending anywhere from two to three and half hours on the bus getting to and from the U, Monday through Thursday. I may be forced to try writing on the bus by talking into my micro-cassette recorder, or some other type of silliness. Writing in the evenings does not work for me for a variety of reasons, and I rarely write on the weekends because that is when we are social, and even Caveman Ook needs human contact from time to time. And I know when I'm home on Friday, I will be too tempted to do all the housework that needs attention. Somewhere in there I have to wedge in assignments from class. Yeah. I'll figure something out.

To make my schedule tighter, I'm seriously considering going back to work, at least part-time. I've given it two years for the writing to try and make up the (not terribly large) difference between my disability benefit and what I made working. I'm not even close. And we really want to buy a house.

One thing that will help me is my new sleep schedule. I discovered that the reason I was having trouble sleeping was that I was trying to make myself sleep too much. Eight hours is more than I need. For the last two weeks I've been getting up at six in the morning and going to bed at midnight. I feel great. I may see if I can creep it up another half-hour and get up at five thirty. If I can learn to use that time in the morning to write, that would rock. I also expect that I may be forced to cut back non-writing related online time. Unfortunately, that will probably include Live Journal, though maybe not, as I get a lot of contact with other writers, as well as bits and pieces of market/industry news, from LJ.

We will see how it all plays out.

In Peace
Michael

Writing. University. Buses. time.

I have not written any new fiction since finishing the novel. I'm starting to feel twitchy. I think tomorrow and Friday I will ignore the entire world while careswen is at work and find something to work on. I have five short stories in various stages of disarray, so I might well pick one of them up and run with.

I might go ahead and start the next novel. I had not planned to start writing on it until Old Blood's Fate was past it's final rewrite and ready to start collecting rejections, but...

I failed to pass a CLEP test yesterday, despite my score being considerably above what is required by most Universities. The U of M has extremely high standards. I initially thought I would be, well, bummed about it, but actually I'm just kind of, "meh," about the whole thing.

After studying how the buses run, I have come to the conclusion that I will need to engage in some creative time management if I'm ever going to get any writing done. I'm going to end up spending anywhere from two to three and half hours on the bus getting to and from the U, Monday through Thursday. I may be forced to try writing on the bus by talking into my micro-cassette recorder, or some other type of silliness. Writing in the evenings does not work for me for a variety of reasons, and I rarely write on the weekends because that is when we are social, and even Caveman Ook needs human contact from time to time. And I know when I'm home on Friday, I will be too tempted to do all the housework that needs attention. Somewhere in there I have to wedge in assignments from class. Yeah. I'll figure something out.

To make my schedule tighter, I'm seriously considering going back to work, at least part-time. I've given it two years for the writing to try and make up the (not terribly large) difference between my disability benefit and what I made working. I'm not even close. And we really want to buy a house.

One thing that will help me is my new sleep schedule. I discovered that the reason I was having trouble sleeping was that I was trying to make myself sleep too much. Eight hours is more than I need. For the last two weeks I've been getting up at six in the morning and going to bed at midnight. I feel great. I may see if I can creep it up another half-hour and get up at five thirty. If I can learn to use that time in the morning to write, that would rock. I also expect that I may be forced to cut back non-writing related online time. Unfortunately, that will probably include Live Journal, though maybe not, as I get a lot of contact with other writers, as well as bits and pieces of market/industry news, from LJ.

We will see how it all plays out.

In Peace
Michael