Trying New Strategies and Getting My Damn Self Outta Bed

Tomorrow, I plan to implement a new writing strategy. Most of the time I write at night after everyone has gone to bed, or to their bedrooms at least.

I’ve purchased a little vibrating wristband to help me get up earlier in the morning. I’ve stated before that I am by no means a morning person. Every attempt I’ve made to get up early has always failed. The wristband is to wake me up but not necessarily my sleeping wife. Left to my own devices, I tend to wake around 9:30 am. Tomorrow the goal will be to get up by 7:30 am, brew something caffeinated and by at the computer by 7:45.

From there, I’ll do a timed 20-minute writing sprint on a story I have already completed 4500 words on. I suspect the feeling of accomplishment this will give me before the day has really started will be the thing that keeps me coming back. I’ll do at least 2 more sprints until I have done an hour of uninterrupted writing.

I’ll come back later in the day after my lunch hour walk and do 2 more sprints with a short break in between.

And it’s perfectly fine if I exceed twenty minutes and write for longer sessions, which often happens once I get into the story and a good writing flow state.

In a few weeks I’ll have to get up at this time to take a train into the city as we are being called back into the studio to work on a new project. This means one or two of these sprints might take place while I'm on the train. The commuter trains in Ontario were designed to move cattle and not people. I’ve yet to get a good writing set up that works in a shoulder-to-shoulder standing room only packed train filled with people in all their winter gear and bags.

I may eventually get another 20 minutes at lunch once the production at the studio gets into full swing.

And finally, a longer session before bed for 1 to 2 hours.

I am still playing around with dictation as well. It takes some practice to really feel comfortable using it. Early tests confirm that it is a very effective way to increase your word count. It does feel different than writing on a keyboard and that will take time to get used to as well.

The BYOK writer I purchased from Kickstarter should be shipping in the next week as well, which gives me another writing device to test out on the go.

I wonder sometimes if I should just bite the bullet and get a Free Write Traveler. The price point keeps me from pulling that trigger. It would be nice to be able to try one out first as well, but I don’t know anyone who has one.