Someday I will write about something other than writing, I promise.  Unfortunately, I don’t anticipate that day happening with any regularity any time soon.

Recognizing my need for some help getting my butt in the seat and actually writing, I decided to build writing into my schedule.  Not wanting to overwhelm myself, I started with just one week at a time, and I built into the schedule the writing I was already doing.  Since I was already writing on the bus, and I knew there was no way I’d be getting up any earlier than 6:00am, the next time I could work writing into my schedule was at lunch.  So, I started putting my lunch/writing on my schedule at work. Initially, I was going to work at the library, which would have the added benefit of getting me to walk across campus another couple of times during the day.  The reality is that it’s getting to be winter, which around here means rainy and cold – walking across campus is not necessarily going to motivate me to get writing.  Just outside of my office there are several cubicles used from math/science tutoring, so now I just check the tutoring schedule to see which one is open, and I take the little netbook in a cubicle and write for an hour.  Surprisingly, I really love it.  I don’t waste time getting anywhere, and it still feels like a ‘new’ space, and since it is a cubicle I can really focus.

At the start, I’d also put some evening writing time in the schedule, from 7pm – 9pm.  Yeah, um, that didn’t work.  My brain is pretty much drained by that time, and I want some time to spend with the DH.  Sure, we might spend all that time sitting on the couch playing Scrabble on my phone, but it’s still together time.  Ok, and sometimes, when the stars align, we have sex.  The point is that no good writing happens, not even shitty first draft writing.  Not keeping the appointment was diminishing the success I felt at writing everyday in other situations, so I took it off the schedule.

So, this is what my writing schedule looks like.  Early morning bus time, an hour at lunch, and full mornings on the weekends.  This might not help me meet the crazy goals I’ve set for myself, but, most importantly, I think it is a sustainable schedule.  (I’m silly like this, so I made sure the appointments show up in my calendar as a color I like.)  Time for my weekend writing to start.