Posts Tagged ‘writing time’

Writing through disturbance

16 Oct

Tags: writing, writing fantasy, Writing Steampunk, writing struggles, writing time, writing with kids
Posted in 7 weeks challenge (1st), Writing Goals, Writing Motivation | Comments Off

The Internet is down at my house. Now is that a crisis? Is it one big enough to jeopardize my “sacred morning writing time”?

I don’t think so.

Now others in my household, especially those who actually caused the internet problem, disagree. I’m suppose to help fix the problem.

Yes I will help. But not now. This is sacred writing time. And I don’t need the Internet for that.

Those times are when the power of habits kicks in and helps us with our resolve.

There are tons of minor crisis in life. Now which one will we stop for to the cost of messing up the long term goal?

(This had to be written on my phone in the bus because… see Internet problem above!)

Much love,
M-C xoxox

Writing, in sickness and in health

02 Oct

Tags: #amwriting, #writegoal, writing life, writing struggles, writing time
Posted in 7 weeks challenge (1st), Writing Goals, Writing Motivation | Comments Off

Or maybe not. I’m learning a lot these days. And one thing I am learning is to live better. Yes, I know plenty of writers talk about how they wrote through horrible sick times (read Stephen King ON WRITING to find out about his experience of writing after surgery), and maybe one day I will.

But since I have both a day job and kids still young enough to need me (1 1/2 hours of homework a night, yikes!), when I’m sick, it means my body is telling me to slow down.

Which means that because of a flu, I skipped Sunday and Monday of my writing challenge. Somehow, it seemed more important to rest to try to get the fever down.

I returned to my day job this morning and somehow it felt natural to open the laptop after making coffee. I told myself I would do five minutes just to keep the habit going. I did ten. So unless my health takes a turn for the worse, I am now increasing my time to 15 minutes starting tomorrow.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

p.s. readers who may wish to comment can do so on my Facebook page or on Twitter. My life needs a little simplifying right now

Location:Seattle

Writing challenge week 3, done!

28 Sep

Tags: #amwriting, #writegoal, writing, writing life, writing struggles, writing time
Posted in 7 weeks challenge (1st), Writing, Writing Goals, Writing Motivation | Comments Off

Week 3 of my 7 week writing challenge (writing a little everyday to create the habit) is completed. I have written for ten minutes right after making coffee in the wee hours of the morning for the last 6 days – tomorrow is my day off.

Today, I was seriously half asleep and half juggling problems from my day job in my head when I realized that I was actually sitting and starting to type my laptop password. The process is starting to be ingrained in my body, which is the point of this challenge.

I am glad to say that after 3 weeks — one week just opening the laptop, the second week editing for 5 minutes and the third week editing for 10 minutes — I have finished the edits on scene 45 and 46. Next week starts my 15 minutes editing sessions.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

p.s. readers who may wish to comment can do so on my Facebook page or on Twitter. My life needs a little simplifying right now

Location:Seattle

Automated writing habit

27 Sep

Tags: #amwriting, #writegoal, writing life, writing struggles, writing time
Posted in 7 weeks challenge (1st), Writing Goals, Writing Motivation | Comments Off

Saved again today by the automated nature of the writing habit. It’s been a challenging work week at my day job and I have been going to bed and waking up wanting to take a break from writing yesterday and today.

But now on day 5 of week 3, my body is just used to automatically go to my writing chair right after I make coffee. It’s as if not writing would be fighting again what I’m used to now. So I am making slow progress, still editing scene 46 and my writing habit is building itself nicely.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

p.s. readers who may wish to comment can do so on my Facebook page or on Twitter. My life needs a little simplifying right now

Location:Seattle

Just the one writing habit at a time

25 Sep

Tags: #amwriting, writing goal, writing life, writing struggles, writing time
Posted in 7 weeks challenge (1st), Writing Goals, Writing Motivation | Comments Off

I have this awful way of wanting to be perfect at all time. Which means that as I successfully build up my writing habit (yes I did my session this morning – week 3, day 3), I also try to fix everything in my life that is wrong: I try to diet, exercise daily, limit my Facebook visit, teach my kids French and make a huge list of all I need to do to be a better teacher.

No wonder I am exhausted tonight.

I may have this huge list but I’m trying really hard to follow zen habit advice to stick with one change at a time – the writing. It’s very hard for me, but I believe that trying to do it all at once is why I have been struggling in the past.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

p.s. readers who may wish to comment can do so on my Facebook page or on Twitter. My life needs a little simplifying right now

Location:Seattle

Writing habits… despite the others.

23 Sep

Tags: #amwriting, #writegoal, writing daily, writing goal, writing life, Writing Steampunk, writing struggles, writing time
Posted in 7 weeks challenge (1st), Writing Goals, Writing Motivation | Comments Off

Right now I am pretty impressed with myself. My goal was to wake up, get my coffee, sit in my writing chair and edit for 10 minutes. And I did just that.
But that part was easy. The hard part was that, for some reason, everyone in my house was up early this morning, people using the kitchen, kids running in after a sleepover in the backyard. I mean EVERYONE.

And the people in my house tend to either tease or whine when they see me writing. They are one of my biggest resistance.

So I woke up and my first thought was, well I could postpone my writing for later today. But then, that would not work with the habit I am trying to build. Because right now it is all about the habit.

So I just plowed through it. Once I was in my chair, I opened the laptop and started to read the manuscript. Then did a few edits in the midst of people asking me for stuff. I did my best in the general chaos. Eyes on the screen, fingers on the keyboard.

Before I knew it, the 10 minutes were over and I was done. The habit is still there! Week 3 starts

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

p.s. readers who may wish to comment can do so on my Facebook page or on Twitter. My life needs a little simplifying right now

Location:Seattle

2/7 week challenge: done!

22 Sep

Tags: #amwriting, #writegoal, writing, writing goal, writing life, writing struggles, writing time
Posted in 7 weeks challenge (1st), Writing, Writing Goals, Writing Motivation | Comments Off

Today is again a day off after a week of mini writing sessions and so far so good. I completed 2 weeks of the 7 week writing challenge and I’m eager to continue building my morning writing habit.
Tomorrow starts week 3, with 10 minutes of writing, and not at any time, no. The challenge calls for writing right after I get up and make coffee!
First thing first.

The health life
Working on my writing habit in small easy steps has inspired me to do the same for my health. After trying many different diets, I decided to keep it very simple and just cut back on food that is not so healthy for me.

Two weeks ago, I cut butter, white bread and white bagel. And this week I stopped eating frozen pizza and chips. Surprisingly easy, and I have to admit that I did stopped myself a few times from mindlessly eating those things. I’ve decided not to obsess over the scale for now and just work on culling down the unhealthy stuff.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

p.s. readers who may wish to comment can do so on my Facebook page or on Twitter. My life needs a little simplifying right now

Location:Seattle

Scary editing

21 Sep

Tags: #amwriting, #writegoal, writing goal, writing time
Posted in 7 weeks challenge (1st), Writing Goals, Writing Motivation | Comments Off

Editing really scares me. I’m not sure if it’s because my work is now typed and closer to be read by others and if I also can’t shut the little voice on my shoulder that says that it’s all crap, or worse laughable, but there you have it. It’s scary. I did some pre-editing tasks (lots of notes of what is missing and wrong) during my session today and I’m worried about tomorrow when the real editing of this scene commence.
Thank goodness, it will only be for 5 minutes and I told myself I could just read and re-read the text.

Blogger life
On another topic, my blog stats stopped working 3 days ago and I have no idea how many visitors I got and I also can’t see my subscribers anymore (hello lovely subscribers!) It’s somewhat freeing, since I no longer see a number of hits per day, and it’s one less thing to be obsessed about, but I do miss not seeing the subscribers. That said, peace of mind is telling me to just let that problem go. Either it will fix itself or I’ll just live it.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

p.s. readers who may wish to comment can do so on my Facebook page or on Twitter. My life needs a little simplifying right now

Location:Seattle

5 minutes of writing is…

20 Sep

Tags: #amwriting, #writegoal, writing goal, writing life, writing time
Posted in 7 weeks challenge (1st), Writing, Writing Goals, Writing Motivation | Comments Off

5 minutes of writing is much too short and I find myself rushing to get as much done in that small frame.
Which is good.

One more day to go in this week of my writing challenge and I can increase the time.

I was skeptical about the holding back principle advised on the Zen Habits blog, but so far it’s working.

No only I’m I showing up at the page and doing the work, I’m also really excited about getting there.

Much love,
M-C xoxox

Location:Seattle

Anticipation to write seems to be winning

17 Sep

Tags: #amwriting, #writegoal, writing goal, writing life, writing struggles, writing time
Posted in 7 weeks challenge (1st), Writing, Writing Goals, Writing Motivation | Comments Off

Well today is day 2 of the second week into my challenge and I found it’s really hard to stop myself after 5 minutes. But I did stop myself because I love the anticipation this creates. Now, I can’t wait to sit at my laptop tomorrow and finished that scene I am working on.

We love what we can’t have. So I’m really banking on that feeling to make sure I look forward to my next session. Habits, one day at a time!

On the writing life
My one and only published title, paranormal romance Ancient Whispers, is no longer available on Kindle. If you know anything about the whole Dorchester Publishing mayhem, you may realize that all Dorchester titles are in transition and that some are going over to Amazon Montlake imprint while others will see their rights reverted to the authors. I am not sure how I want mine go yet, so it’s something else I need to deal with as a writer.

And such is life…

Much love,
M-C xoxox

Location:Seattle