jam tomorrow and jam yesterday

[prillalar]

Wrote a drabble for the slash100 Danger challenge.

Jam, Merry/Pippin, G

Writing the drabble was a reward for working on a larger story I've got cooking.

Why is it that I have a hobby that I have to force myself to do most of the time? I'm working on a fair-sized project (well, for me, anyhow) which I started, in part, to procrastinate on a vid which I started to procrastinate on a larger writing project. And now I want to write little drabbles and such because they are so much easier.

So, I make the rules. "You must write 150 words before you can check your email." "If you finish this scene, you may write a drabble." "If you don't get 1000 words done this weekend, no-one will love you ever again."

Rules help. How do you make yourself write? Or vid or draw or whatever other creative things you do.

And now, to shower. But only if I use the time to plan the next scene in my fic.

Comments

[zortified.livejournal.com]

I make myself write by thinking about why I like it, and why I want to. I remind myself that people will love me even if I never write again.

I also knit a lot, and say "I can't possibly write now because I have to finish this sock."

Cleaning the kitchen helps, too. And movies. I'm not-writing now, because 'Return of the Pink Panther' is on.

[planetalyx.livejournal.com]

Knitting! Knitting helps me write, actually, because it obliges me to sit still and think.

[prillalar]

I admire people who can knit. I've tried to learn about four times, but it's just too spatial for me.

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

So, I make the rules. "You must write 150 words before you can check your email." "If you finish this scene, you may write a drabble." "If you don't get 1000 words done this weekend, no-one will love you ever again."

LOL! That is so familiar, except that I do it for both my online fannish 'work' and my real life salaried work. "If you grade and comment on three papers, you can read another chapter of that story."

Last night I forced myself to stay awake until I'd actually finished the no-pairing HP story I've been fiddling with for over a month (on the basis that if I didn't, I might never finish another story ever again). Of course, all my potential betas are sadly offline at the moment, so maybe there wasn't really any rush. *g*

-Beth, back to the beta search.

[prillalar]

Hee! At work it's more like: "If you finish coding that boring form, you can read one Slashdot story."

[planetalyx.livejournal.com]

One pretty common technique that I use when the going gets tough is to use a timer. I set it for an hour, and I have to write for that long. If I get up to make tea, answer doors, etc., I hit the pause button (it's electronic) so the hour doesn't get frittered away.

I haven't really had to do that much though since I took up afternoons on AIM with Jessica (http://www.livejournal.com/users/jess_ka/)!

[prillalar]

A timer might be a good idea. And since I started meeting once a week for beta and writing talk with a friend, I've been better at pushing things out, since I have a mini-deadline every week.

I suppose I just wish I were Isaac Asimov. *g*

[planetalyx.livejournal.com]

Don't be. I read an article by him once about how he hated it when the sun came out, because he was afraid his friends would come by and want him to play. (as it were.) That to me sounds like the life of NO fun at all!

Harry Turtledove, OTOH, does an hour on one project, then an hour on the next, then an hour on the third... and he's pumping out books upon books each year.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

There was a period when I thought I was going to have to go get a job in order to have something to do other than work on the novel.

The past two weeks I've had good luck with the technique of saying to myself, "If you write 500 words of the novel, then as a reward you can write some slash." A pretty neat trick, since before that I was working on neither the novel nor the slash, but instead spending most of my time playing "Alchemy."

Oh, and I leave the house and leave the laptop behind, because it's a big box of procrastination. So now I'm back to writing longhand in a little spiral notebook.

[prillalar]

Tricky you, playing two projects off against each other!

I recently made another foray into the world of longhand, but it didn't work out. I can outline or make notes that way, but my writing method is just too optimized to BBEdit. Plus I can never read my writing when it's time to transcribe it.