Like most writers, I often struggle with having more than one project on my mind. Usually I take it a step forward and start writing said other project without finishing the first one. This cycle continues over and over again and I feel like I never get anything done.
I’ve been struggling with this dilemma for a long time. I always dreamed of “making it as a writer”, but I could never get past “I need a decent job to support myself”. While the latter is true, I feel like I haven’t’ done enough to follow that dream of “making it as a writer”. It’s not like I’m blaming anything or anyone for that. Teaching takes a lot of hours of the day during the school year. And yet, it sort of feels like it’s also an excuse?
With all those thoughts, I’ve finally buckled down on myself this month. If I wanted my writing career to go anywhere, I needed to start making some changes. I limited myself to two stories I can work on. Everything else needed to wait. The first one, is a novel that is in the midst of being written. At least, one chapter a week since I’m posting it on Wattpad first. The second one is a story that I’m editing/rewriting. So, one story to write and one story to edit.
With that in mind, I needed to figure out how much time I could dedicate to each story. Now, I can’t say what or how it finally clicked for me. To be honest, I don’t know why it took me so long to figure this out. It now seems so simple. I know my writing habits and how I like to procrastinate on certain things.
Even though there’s only seven days in a week, I decided to divide the week. You’d think that would be an easy thing for me to figure out, but apparently it wasn’t. The simplest things are always the hardest. So, I decided to dedicate the first three to four days of the week, editing three chapters of one story. The rest of the days are dedicated to writing. Of course, this only works when I have the plot details ready for that story.
Needless to say, I tried it this past week and it worked. However, it’s more than doing it. It also came with the discipline of knowing what I needed to do and executing it. Discipline played a huge role in keeping to the schedule. I stayed up late one day to make sure I got more writing done.
As it stands, if I can follow this schedule for the next two to three weeks, then I will know that it works for me.
At least with this, it won’t make writing a chore and I’ll have more fun with it. Maybe in the near future, I will start on the first step of “making it as a writer”.
Dabbling in the Art of Writing 