And the Stories You'll Write! (Part III of III)

Now that you have ideas and characters, when will you ever find the time to jot anything down?!


Here's how my summer days usually run (and this is subject to a lot of changes):


6:30 AM Kids get rowdy, time to get up.


6:45 AM Coffee, prepare Christina's snack and backpack for summer school


6:45 AM Michael comes downstairs, messes w/my laptop. Anything not saved is lost. And yes, I locked my keyboard, but he yanks the power.


6:45 AM Baby Sarah demands breakfast, usually cereal. Also breakfast for everyone else.
(reboot laptop,unlock keyboard, retrieve the last saved thing I wrote, jot down a word or two, save)


7:00 AM Time to change Christina out of jammies. Involves chasing her down, trying to clothe a wriggling body, tangled hair and all.
(unlock keyboard, jot down half a paragraph. Maybe)


7:10 AM Change/clothe Michael and Sarah


7:20 AM Bus comes to the door, about 10 minutes late, but on time for us. Hustle Christina and her backpack out to bus, kiss her goodbye.


7:22 AM Return to find laptop messed with again. Reboot 2nd time, unlock keyboard, retrieve saved manuscript. Put on Wiggles DVD, maybe 15 minutes uninterrupted time to check E-mail, Twitter,Facebook, etc.


7:30 AM Not quite 8 minutes, phone call. Is Mum friend who needs to vent about hubby, kids, life in general. Extricate myself from conversation, using  Baby Sarah's toxic diaper as excuse. Find laptop needs 3rd reboot. Lost e-mail reply, have to redo. Multiple windows open on laptop by this time.


And this isn't an hour into my day. Try writing with 3 kids in tow, but my point is: even if it's a few words, a paragraph...I squeeze in writing whenever I can. Even in a hectic schedule like mine, those few words add up over a while. The couple of lines while waiting in the pediatrician's office, while the kids have lunch, and during playgroups. And away from the keyboard, I'm constantly rewriting, editing, dreaming up plots in my head.


Take everything you see in your life, people you see, places you go to every day, and write, even when life seems to interrupt your "writing time". Be persistent, and most of all, be flexible. And you'll see the little pieces add up after a short time.

All writing and art copyright A. Dameron 2000-2010

These are How my Writing Days Go, When the Kids Go Crazy...

I haven't written a single word today. Not a single word. I helped with Son's End-of-The-School Year picnic. Was a rousing success, in spite of North Carolina humidity. Grabbed a 10 minute nap, did housework, kids had hot dog for dinner. Had mini pizzas (4 of them) and and a small piece of chocolate mint ice creak cake for dessert. '


Oh, never mind. I just wrote something.  Yay!

All writing and art copyright A. Dameron 2000-2010

Trying to cram writing in between...

...keeping my girls out of trouble, resizing art, RP'ing on Twitter, and cleaning the house. Not to mention hubby was home today to fix his car. So yeah, it was real life 1, writing...maybe a .5


And no, I wasn't trying to procrastinate on anything. Much. That's why I leave my laptop on most of the time...if I get 5 minutes to scribble/type/jot down a few words, that counts on the effort. On the word count...okay, maybe in the long run. It doesn't look like much right now. They say a page a day is 365/366 pages a year, which is novel-sized. Yeah.


I found a collection of stories that I wrote when I was 12 years old and in my Thunderbirds/anime/manga phase. I read through it and I was like AAAGH! Gimme a break. I was 12. Still. One of these days I ought to share some of those awful passages under "teenage writing angst".


Hopefully, I'll have more time this weekend.


Annie