Writing Tip Wednesday

It's Writing Tip Wednesday - on a Friday!  (Because I forgot to write it when I should have...)

Which brings me to my tip: 

Schedule Shit.

Weekly Disclaimer Thing: Writing, like all art, is a subjective experience.  Stuff that works for me won't necessarily work for you...though I hope it does, since I'd love for everyone to succeed.  Can never have enough books to read!  Either way, take these tips with the giant grain of salt needed to season it to your liking, since I could very well be talking out my ass.

Scheduling is Like the Outline of Your Life.

I know.  So deep.

But it really is.  I don't know why this didn't occur to me ages ago, since it's so damn obvious, but I think the perspective shift is good.  It is!  Because outlines are important, as we know (even if they're loose ones), so scheduling shit is important too.  The level of it is, of course, up to you and what you're comfortable with.  Some people like to pants their way through stories, maybe they like to pants their way through life too.  Or have every second planned to the micro detail.  Or not.  

Point is, if I'd scheduled this (and the time to write it), you'd have been reading it two days ago instead of now, when I should be posting Photo Friday.  

Anyway, the schedule doesn't need to be about the other shit you do during the day - though it can be, because having the time to sit down and write is part of the day and knowing roughly when that needs to happen is a Good Thing.  But you should schedule the year too - When a book is going to be released, how many words/day you need to write to get to that point, if you're doing giveaways...or blog posts...

As you can see, I'm still learning this as I go.  It's tricky, because sometimes you have to schedule times to sit down and schedule things, and then there's a whole pile of meta crap to work through too.

Be Flexible.

Which is easier said than done for a lot of us, but it's true:  You've gotta roll with the punches, not pull the unmovable mountain thing.  Sometimes (most of the time) shit doesn't go to plan.  Things happen.  You might not get to sit down and write posts about sitting down to write posts when they should be written.  You might end up going apple picking instead.  Or need to clean up the giant piles of dog hair that accumulate under the dining room table because your mostly sled-dog mix sheds all goddamn year around and routinely drops enough hair to make a goddamn sweater and even vacuuming the dog with the pet attachment doesn't curb it.

Or the car might break down.

Lots of Things can happen.  And you've gotta be able to adapt to Things, at least a little bit.  Jump the obstacles in your path or go around, you've gotta Be Flexible.

Anyway.

I'm not trying to be all preachy or whatever.  Just ruminating on an epiphany that I should have had years ago, but instead had fairly recently.  I can't just pants a story any more, else I get stuck.  Follows that I can't really pants my way through life, either - to an extent.  Obviously the Things that happen can't all be planned.  But that's where the flexibility and stuff comes in.  Do the Bruce Lee things and Be Like Water, or...not.  It's really up to you and how you adapt.

Hope this helps...