Tips for being a successful and comfortable writer as learned today:
1. To be a writer you are going to spend large amount of time sitting (or semi-reclined if you write in bed like me, which I've been informed is very bad for me, but appears to be quite good for my writing) you will very likely get headaches. If you have stretched out all your neck muscles and this hasn't helped much: Stretch your butt. Honestly, stretch out your glutes, your hip flexors and your lower back. The yoga position half-pigeon is quite good for this. It's worth it, and can be quite fun (though not recommended at work or if you are wearing a skirt.)
2. Try killing your family. Unfortunately I love my family very much. But I announce that I'm starting a writing challenge, and the first thing they turn around and say is 'come up to Mum and Dad's on Tuesday.' When I replied 'I can't come, I'm writing', their natural answer is 'Oh, that's okay, we'll come to you.' Seriously? What part of 'I have to write almost every spare hour I have' don't you get? They didn't even wait for me to realise that I would never make it and be looking for excuses not to write. Now if I didn't love them and could kill them off then a) I would probably have a great story to tell and b) would get locked away with all my meals provided and no one would disturb me... much.
As you might have guessed from my little rant, I didn't make my word count today.
I did really well in the morning before work, got 2,700 done (had toast before I started, which I think helped the flow). Then got home from work and got another 2,500 done as well as editing some of the work I had already written to iron out some inconsistencies before I lost the rest of the evening to playing Settlers of Catan. I have to admit I do love Settlers, but still.
I have convinced myself it is not too bad, as I'm not actually doing the challenge based on word count, but rather on completed novels, so since I already had some of this novel written, I've probably got a bit of leeway. However, it is only the third day which is a bit depressing. I thought people would at least give me a week to work out it was too much hard work before trying to tempt me away.
And I've booked in to do something Thursday night as well! (I had actually booked it in for last week, but they had to change).
There are three aspects to life: social, writing, work. You can have any two, but unless you can compress two into one, then you can't have all three.
I'm aiming to make writing my work, and still have a social life. I have some very nice people at work, but do not think I could cope with the thought of it being my only social life. Way too many migration agents for that.
Sometimes I think I would be happy if writing were my social life, but my friends don't seem to agree. But I would write really nice lives for them. Promise.
Oh well. Life can't be all easy.
Tomorrow is my day off from work, so will try for another 10,000.
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