I found this interesting post by John Scalzi about holding himself to writing deadlines each day that sounded interesting to me…
Why 2,000 Words Works For Me
Basically he’s created a rule for himself that for the first few hours of each day, he does nothing but writing for his next book – 2,000 words or until the clock strikes noon, and the latter caveat is simply so he has an out if after a few hours things just aren’t flowing on that particular day. No surfing the web, no checking e-mail, taking calls or having meetings – just a set 3-4 hour interval first thing to do nothing but create the work that he actually gets paid to create before opening up the flood gates for everything else, productive and not so much, that comes with the rest of the day.
After having a couple of really bad weeks recently of putting my humor column up days and even weeks late, I feel like having a bit of structure to my writing process might help with making deadlines … even though I have a feeling in the beginning this would be tough, especially since currently I tend to write on a when I feel like it basis. Even if I couldn’t set a fixed time each week to work on the next column, though, I think stating that once I sit down to write, I’m not leaving for two hours or until it’s done would definitely be reasonable.
As it stands today, I estimate that each column takes roughly four hours from start to finish, however that estimate encompasses a lot of procrastination, wandering attention spans, etc…, so I’ve gotta believe that two truly dedicated hours could cover that, or at least cover the vast majority. Sure, the time without Facebook and Twitter and my e-mail and random blogs sounds rough, except that if I can effectively cut my writing time in half by focusing on what I really need to do, that’s two extra hours a week to surf, tweet, and otherwise screw around … oh yeah, and I’d actually be making my deadlines for a change! 🙂
Believe it or not, this week’s column is actually already done, but I think this is definitely something that I need to put a little more thought into giving a try here in the near future. I may be caught up by a random creative fluke now, but next week will be here before we know it and consistency would be one hell of a stress reliever for this typically tardy humor columnist…