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Keeping organised and focussed!
Has anyone any advice on keeping organised and focussed? I tend to find that I have so many things I want to write - short stories, novels, articles - that I end up actually doing very little because I cant seem to get any sort of proper system going. I like to have a few things on the go to keep things varied but find it hard to actually progress anything!
How does everyone else deal with this problem?
Comments
I also do this with other non-writing related tasks.
ttofee, your problem is similiar to mine. What i did was to
first of all I realise I needed to
1) write down why I wanted to write
then when I found out I could not achieve everything at once, I decided to
2) allocate a time for each piece of wrting (eg two hours each weekday)
before that time came round I made sure I
3) listed what I wanted to achieve in that time (eg write 300 words of chapter 1 of novel)
and made sure I was at my writing station, at that time and doing I'd agreed with myself I would do
My aim now is to send out one short story per month and write 2,000 novel words a week and so far it has worked.
If you make an agreement with yourself what you want achieve and when by, that should help you a little.
Good luck.
I want this year to be different - okay I know its now March but I am going back to work in three weeks after being off on maternity leave and my grand plans to do all this writing whilst I was off have amounted to very little so I feel I need to kickstart myself again!
Try to record or remember what you have done as well as listing what you want to do, or it'll never seem as though you're getting anywhere.
doesn't matter if that half hour is split up into three lots of ten minutes, just so long as you keep to the half hour
that you've told yourself you'll do
I know how hard it is with young children around, having had three under five at one time myself so, don't be too hard on yourself if sometimes your plans don't work out
all the best
good luck with returning to work ttofee
I like ALL the above ideas.
Good luck and I'll join in, cos I need to get organised as well, everything's a bit haphazard here
Computer ...
see new Fred
GOOD LUCK!
Tell me you're doing better, please!
I'll know tomorrow if I am going to get on with w o r k. There is a story hanging around, I am told, but the author hasn't got the opening line right yet.
Other than the day job and writing I've not done much else, but then the weather hasn't been up to much so I haven't really wanted to.
Just logged on to Static Movement to find there are new exciting anthologies demanding attention ... need to get my guys motivated. I mean, all evening and he finally gives me the first line when I'm in bed!!!!
One 's' on thiss forum pleasse
:D
I absolutely love ttofee ttoo...wish I'd thought of that...
please go and see the pissing boy fountain in the thirteenth century square. Bruges will inspire you...it's so back to the past it's come round again and it's back to the future. I wonder if I could set a sci-fi novel starting in Bruges? Excellent choice. Have a lovely break.
;)
http://www.future-perfect.co.uk/grammartips/grammar-tip-focussed-focused.asp
"What about focus?
This word can take either double or single s, with the single option being highly preferred.
word present participle past participle
focus focusing/focussing focused/focussed"
(Digs talons in and refuses to budge)
Hope everyone else has managed to achieve something as I haven't done much.
I'm waiting for the Mechanic to come and fit the car part- fingers crossed that it will be running fine after this...
It said 'car part'...
The car is running. We thought we might have trouble as one of the brakes had jammed up but it freed itself, so hubby didn't have to get up so early this morning- bliss, not being woken up at 5am...
There's another one coming up in a few weeks time. I've signed up, though I've not participated before, and was wondering if anyone else was giving it a go?
I agree. I think it looks awful spelt with two 'ss'.