I’m back to my regularly scheduled program today. After weeks of distractions of the holidays and the time spent setting up the blog (I’ll do a separate post on blogs for the novice in a future post), it’s time to get back to the business of writing.
For me, there’s a ritual for getting started. I’ve always been an early riser, but having dogs pretty much enforced that. Dogs live for the schedule. Rowan has a tiny bladder and starts reminding me what time it is anywhere between 5 and 6am. I get up and throw some sweats on, let the girls out of their crates and we go out for a quick piddle. Then Mia and Rowan and I go for our morning constitutional. Quilly doesn’t go with us. She’s not a morning person.
When we get back, I feed the starving pack and have my own brekkies and catch up on the news on TV. I’m a weather junkie, so I can’t really start my day unless I see that seven-day forecast. I start the coffee and jump into the shower while it’s doing its thing, because it goes too slow if I have to wait for it.
It takes me about forty minutes to read the paper and do the daily Sudoku and crossword. The Sudoku is easiest on Monday, and gets progressively harder as the week goes on. It’s a good week if I can solve the Friday puzzle (I did today). The crossword is iffy. Sometimes I’ll go days and not be able to finish. I didn’t finish today. Generally I’m much better at the crossword than the Sudoku.
Then I’m in my office, usually by eight. I briefly check the mail and job boards, and then I’m writing. I am constantly amazed at how fast the time flies when I’m writing. Rowan tells me it’s time to quit when she comes up and puts her head on my knee. If I ignore her, she comes back and slaps me with the Frisbee. I look up and it’s two o’clock; I try to shoot for about 1200 words a day (that’s roughly 6 pages). I log my word count for the day, and we go out to play.
Anyone can write. Put one word after another. They don’t even have to mean anything at first. Before long, you’ll have a sentence. Write another after that. A written page is about 250 words; and 250 words a day will get you a nice thick manuscript at the end of a year. Develop a habit of writing every day, and before long, you’ll find that your body needs to write. Ideas will come to you that simply must be captured and written down before you lose them. Writers write. Every day.
