Summer brings a whole new list of distractions for one's writing career: summer vacation(s), weddings, free outdoor festivals and concerts, barbecues at the park and more. Since I choose to pay the high cost of living in a resort town, for me the summers involve working at a lot of weddings for extra cash. Instead of spending my Saturdays writing, I keep guests from bombarding the buffet, force additional cake on children and others (when needed) so the leftovers can be displayed neatly and then spend hours cleaning up dirty dishes and listening to booze soaked party guests reminisce and spin tales. Rarely does the ambiance fail to sprak ideas; ideas which I'll have to wait months to explore unless I want to overburden my schedule.
Yeah, that's right. I believe in the S word. Schedules are both my burden and my best friend. I put myself on a strict editorial schedule several months ago for my blogging and have been very happy with the change. Now that I have distinct themes for each of my weekly posts, I can more easily write ahead when I know I have a busy time coming up in my personal life. For my first year of blogging I tried the "write about anything" approach and found myself constantly waiting until the last minute to chose what I wanted to write about. The endless array of choices did not lead me to write more, but rather to procrastinate longer. As soon as I narrowed down my choices drastically by creating specific themes for each post, I found myself writing regularly with enthusiasm. I even have time to schedule in the occasional evening to enter poetry contests or ponder magazine submissions. My schedule doesn't feel like a burden. It's a measuring tool for time management. I'm happier when I have time to "do it all", but I never get to live it up and fulfill my goals without a schedule.
Of course, if you aren't careful, scheduling can become your worst nightmare. You must take the time to get to know yourself and plan blank spots in your schedule to catch up on the goals that got away from you in previous days. Plan fun days and work days to make sure you give your brain time to recover and relax. If you like to visualize things like I do, get yourself a white board to write your goals on and erase them as they are completed (or something similar) and a pretty photo calendar on which to write down completed tasks each day. (I have codes for certain things which others might be amused to know I was tracking.) Balancing the daunting presence of the to do's on the white board with a calendar full of completed tasks helps me feel the positive energy of a schedule in motion. I love looking back at the notes on what I did each month. Perhaps writing things down inspired me to do more, but looking at that list makes me no longer feel lazy.
To give yourself many items to check off your to do list, plan your writing goals in smaller bits and stick to the task at hand. Don't list "work on novel" on your to do list. Instead, list "edit chapter 1", "write 3000 words for chapter 3" or "make a list of possible titles". As you are working on your goals, write down your random ideas as they attempt to derail your focus and tuck them away for later so you won't worry you are wasting them. Limit yourself to a few sentences and then get back to your original goal. Celebrate each poem, paragraph, chapter, article, or short story you create, edit or submit this summer by scheduling yourself enough time to have it all.
