WIP Challenge Check-in, Day 2 -- Tuesday

[linaewen]

Hello on Tuesday!  What kind of a writing day has it been so far today -- or if today hasn't gotten going yet, how did you fare yesterday?

       - I thought about my fic once or twice
       - I wrote
       - I did some planning and/or outlining
       - I did research and/or canon review
       - I edited
       - I've sent my fic off to my beta
       - I posted today!
       - I'm taking a break
       - I did something else that I'll talk about in a comment

Tuesday Discussion:  How do you go about encouraging yourself to write when you have the time, but just don't feel like it?

Comments

[linaewen]

I worked with a student who gets help from me for essays, so in that sense writing-related work happened, but that's it for yesterday. Not sure today will be conducive to anything except running around!

I tend to have time to write but I'm either worn out by the day's activities or too busy thinking of other things to take advantage of the time. Hoping for some good hints from people to help me get over this problem of not writing when I can!

[ctytn]

Something I find helps is to have some time after work just do something to unwind and get out of work mode. Whatever that thing is will depend on the person such as: the drive home itself, reading, meditation, a craft of some kind. Just a break to avoid going from work to chores or personal goals, like writing or studying. Also helps to set yourself a time so the whole evening doesn't get wasted with distractions. Obviously depends on your timetable. Maybe that sort of thing could help.

[linaewen]

This is good advice! I would probably need to set a timer or something, as I would have a tendency to end up unwinding for the whole evening, leaving no time left for writing. ;-)

[samuraiter]

Today is another planning day, though a lot of that planning is going towards building a new comm here on Dreamwidth. All for the best in the long run.

Planning also serves as encouragement, IMO. Knowing exactly what I am going to do helps me do it, though I leave room for improvisation.

[ctytn]

Yesterday I managed to get quite a bit done. Mainly organised the whole fic, shuffled things into an order and identified some missing bits. Overall very happy I managed to do that.

I did get slightly distracted by a new plot bunny, which isn't helpful at all.

Re motivation. I honestly just force myself to write when I can but lacking the motivation. Even if it's not what I should be working on, just anything. Just doing it enough to make it a habit, that when the motivation does come you aren't out of practice. I don't think there's an easy method. I find it helps to make your surroundings good, if possible, and just write.