Clarion West

I much prefer to head to the county library to write when time and childcare allow.  Removing myself from the distractions at home (is the laundry caught up?, dishes need doing, I never paid that bill, there goes the phone again) works wonders for my ability to focus on the story at hand.

I have no idea how it might change with the workshop, but I hope it's positive!

Sandra

I'm sickeningly disorganised. I write/edit in hyper-productive spurts of a few days, but often weeks pass wherein I get very little done besides some plotting/brainstorming. That's essential - I'm a plotter like whoa - but not as gratifying.

As for the rest... I practically always write at home (easy since I have a very irregular work schedule, if any), usually in the living room so the cat doesn't feel abandoned, and usually with a fresh pot of tea by my side. I'll often spend at least a few hours a day procrastinating, be it in the morning or afternoon, but I rarely mind it as long as I get enough done the rest of the day. I figure if my brain needs to recharge, I should let it. 

While I absolutely hope the workshop would help me with discipline and focus, I can't say it's my main reason for wanting to attend. It'd be an awesome bonus, but I just want to get better, plain and simple *g*

Corinne used the phrase "sickeningly disorganized".  I would love to come up to the level of being sickeningly disorganized.  I'm more along the lines of why-is-that-mayonaise-in-my-underwear-drawer disorganized.  I once saw the top of my desk.  That's right, once.

I write in tiny little spurts most of the time, in between curing catastrophic dilemmas for my three-year-old.  (Where's my Dora chair?  Can I have a drink?  I want to play Elmo games!)  After she goes to bed, I often curl up in front of the television to tap out a few pages.  If I'm watching reality shows or other mindless drivel, this works great.  I can't write during 24.  Or Psych.  Or the Mentalist or Castle.  There are others, but few.  The Olympics have been good for my production, at least the first few days. 

Anyway, I'm a huge violator of Heinlein's third rule of writing (Revise only to editorial request.)  I go back and pick and pick.  I use online critique workshops to zoom in on major flaws but not so much minor ones -- those are usually attributable to style.  And I never have just one project going at a time, though I can usually tell you which has my attention.

So what kinds of writing habits do I have?  Bad ones.  How do I expect the workshop to adjust them?  Mostly just speed things up.  I still hope to be a chaotic mess but it would be nice if that didn't slow me down.  

-Oso 

(http://osomuerte.wordpress.com)

That's funny--watching tv while writing. I would never get anything done. I like multi-tasking but need to be all "of one mind" when I'm writing.

Lately I've been trying to write in the morning, before the crud of the day gets in the way of my ability to think about the story. I also write in chunks, somewhere between 500-1000 words. Those first 500 words are really hard, but I think it's because that's the place where I'm learning to focus.  Once I get over a particular hurdle (the word count and/or the scene), I'm pretty happy for the rest of the day. The morning stuff works wonders because even though I have 'real world' things to do for the rest of the day, I continue to think back to what I did in the morning, and usually will be able to stay focused on adding more to it later in the day, or at the very least, taking notes on what I'll add the next day.

I hope the workshop will give me perspective on what I should be considering more in-depth during my writing routine. It's not word count that I'm worried about; it's more like learning to balance my stories so that they're neither too vague nor too didactic.

I'm working on a novel right now, so I'm hoping to have a good first draft (well, second, actually--it's somewhat of a rewrite) completed by the time the workshop begins (whether or not I get in!).

I'd never be able to watch TV while writing.

 ... I quite often watch it instead of writing, though, which is probably not an improvement. 

I'm totally distracted by family and other obligations, so I crave the space that I think Clarion is going to provide. I think I may be one of those people who won't know how to go on after returning from the workshop, but I hope I can develop better habits. My material is super-organized in little binders and virtual folders, but my mind is a cluttered mess. I tend to produce in motivated spurts, too.

I've been in hyper-writing mode this week, and I'm listening to the same album, Billy Idol's hugely under-rated Cyberpunk, over and over while I'm working (mostly to drown out family noises). Anyone else have favorite writing tunes? Anyone know why I can't use breaks or HTML tags from my Mac?

I do like Pandora, but like Oso, I tend to sing along. That's my "grading papers" music. My "station" is Kate Bush, which tends to play a lot of Imogene Heap and stuff like that.

I have an office in my apartment dedicated to writing and pretty much writing only.  I try to spend at least 4-5 hours a day writing, with another 2-3 spent on admin stuff and editing and all the non-writing stuff that has to happen.  I've been a little lazy the last month what with a workshop and some life stuff to take care of, but being poor is motivating me to get back to 4-5k words a day.

I have to have music.  I prefer non-word stuff (or non english or spanish words anyway), so I listen to a lot of classical and techno.  

I used to LOVE pandora too.  Stupid ads.  Oh well.  They still are less annoying than the radio, and good in a pinch.