What are your writing sessions like?

Mine are very varied too.
If I'm really into a project I work in the mornings, before I take on anything else that day. This way I make sure to prioritize my writing over everything else. I usually have as a goal to write 2000k a day (five days a week). Sometimes I don't achieve it and I try not to beat myself up about it.

When I'm not deep inside some project I am more erratic - work a little here, a little there, sit down at a café with a notebook, sit in front of the computer, sometimes with no reslut at all. Or like now when I should be writing but instead I'm here...

I'm loud and messy. I talk out loud, laugh, yell and cuss. I scatter reference books all over the desk and floor and frequently get up and pace while talking out a sequence.
I scare the dogs often with this behavior.
I'm also inconsistent and rarely write for more than an hour at a time straight through.

Full of interruptions, but I seem to work better that way. I've also found that if the document is always open, then I'm constantly adding to it, which helps.

I have no set session plan. I write when it hits me...I may be at a computer, or somewhere with nothing but a pencil and the inside of a takeout menu. I can sit and write for 10 hours without stopping. Just depends on what comes to me and at what speed it comes to me.

Quiet and peaceful, with about an hour at a time. Or not.

I spend a lot of time "prewriting."

I usually spend about two months on that stage, writing around two to three hours a night. I end up with asmany as four notebooks full of notes and outline and character sketches and bull.

Somewhere in there, it starts to feel like it's time to write the thing. I know it's time when I start getting quiet. I'm thinking about the script all day.

Then, I sit down to write it and usually vomit out a first draft in about a week. During that period, the writing is constant. I don't want to talk or go out or watch TV or anything. Just write.

I put the first draft aside and come back to it in a few weeks for rewriting.

It's a weird system, but it works for me.

I find short bursts very unproductive.

I know a lot of people will do an hour a day and that works for them, but I'm not even warmed up by then. I need a good chunk of time. But for as bad as I am in a single hour, the longer I work, the more the kinks disappear and the words start flowing. I type faster, my thinking is clearer and the work is better.

When I was finishing my first "written" draft of my first novel I had a weekend where I could work nights. Friday night I had about 11pm thru to 4am. Same Saturday night. I pumped out 20,000 words.

Now when it comes to editting the work, I can do that in short bursts and even with interruptions around me. But writing... I NEED big juicy chunks of time.

Fits and starts.

Occasionally, I get in the zone and can't not write. I go for hours and it's quality stuff.

I don't believe in waiting for inspiration to strike. If you wait for the muse, she'll get bored. You have to sit at the computer and then she appears. She lives in your hard drive!

I just need to have more self-discipline.

Inconsistent. I like a good, big chunk of time, but if an idea strikes me, I can hammer the bones of it out whenever the mood moves me.

I like to edit in large chunks, too, like when I read. I edit as if I were my own reader, and need to really feel a connection to the plot and flow of the prose to effectively edit it.

Depends.

Writing sessions on my own work tend to be chaotic. I'll check my email, post on the boards, pull up a story and start to type. Write for a while, check some blogs, write some more. Go into the chat room for half an hour. Write. Watch a TV show and write during commericial breaks.

Writing sessions with my co-writer tend to be day-long marathons. From lunchtime until late evening on Sundays, usually in blocks of five to nine hours, we write back and forth. Breaks for food, bathroom, stretching, sometimes a walk down to Dunkin Donuts for iced coffee just to recharge.

But always something in the background, be it music or a movie I've seen a dozen times.

Often Interrupted.

::ick up the pencil:::: 'MOM!'
::ick up the pencil:::: 'Mom!'

::ick up the pencil::: 'Hey, Mom'
::ick up the pencil::: 'Mom!"

::::break the pencil in half and throw it at the wall::::
"GEEZ, Mom! You don't have to get so upset."

Then:::::

It takes me about half an hour or more to get in the right frame of mind, during which time I usually start by reading the last thousand words or so, making minor corrections. Then I putz around for a while trying to put myself back in the scene. If I can get away with the prep time uninterrupted I can usually produce about 700-1000 words in the next 45 minutes to an hour. Then it's break time, and if it's still pulling at me, I go back for no more than another hour or so. For me to have this much time in a single day is a bit unusual, and I've never produced more than about 2000 words in a day.

I'm one of those hot or cold people. Some days, the ideas just keep coming and I can crank out an entire column in one sitting. But other days, the Muses don't like me for some reason and it's like pulling teeth. Go figure!

Write a bit.
Wander into living room and have mouthful of cold coffee.
Write a bit.
Go out back door and have half a fag, while staring vacantly into space.
Write a bit.
Stare at wall. Notice seam of wall-paper looks as if it's coming away from wall. Get up. Poke it. Decide it's fine.
Write a bit.
Go out back door for other half of fag. Have chat with old lady next-door.
Write a bit.
Decide it's not going to rain after all. Wash knickers. Hang on line.
Write a bit.
Wander back into living-room. Peer hopefully into cup. Cold coffee all gone. Put on kettle, Make more coffee.
Write a bit.
Story finished.
Check over and remove mistakes.
Print out.
Check over again.
Remove more mistakes.
Reprint relevant pages.
Print cover sheet.
Fold story.
Stick in envelope for posting.

The end.

Repeat, with variations, every day.

Ideally, I walk the kids to school, come home, grab a Coke and sit down at the computer for the next two hours.
That's ideally. What happens is that I usually get great ideas while I'm waiting for the traffic light to turn left into Target for cat food, and have to write stuff on my hand with the half-melted pen on my dashboard.

Writing sessions? What about the pre-writing/rewriting sessions? I think about where I am in my story as I drive to work and sometimes have trouble putting it away when it's time to start the 9-5. I check on the internet for needed pieces of information during lunch or edit read parts I've printed out. Back to thinking out the story on the drive home. Finally after supper's over I can write and go at it with a vengence (while I consume a lot of coffee and burn up a pack of smokes) until it's time to get ready for bed. And then, I can't go to sleep because I'm still mulling over what I wrote or what I should have written or have yet to write in my head. At some point in time I fall asleep and wake up the next morning to start it all over again. Hooked? Sounds like it to me. Puma

For me, the place has to be right. Luckily, there are a lot of values of 'right'. My workspace at home is in the bedroom I share with my husband. We sleep in a loft bed, and my desk is underneath. There are twinkly lights strung up below the mattress, so I have nice, soft lighting. My desk is set into our big bay window which looks out onto the park. I need to be able to look at something that's not a computer screen sometimes. It's nice to look out and see traffic going by on one side and the trees swishing in the wind on the other, nice to see the reflections of the lights in the window. The other place I spend a lot of time writing in is a local wood: I take my laptop there, have endless cups of tea at their outoor café, and write in a setting very much like the place my current project is set in.

Music is important. I have a playlist of music that inspires whatever I'm working on, and I keep that on shuffle on the mp3 player or the computer itself while I'm working.

I find that being in a physical space that says, 'this is a writing space' to me nad having the right music helps pull it all together to the point where I can usually just dig right in and start writing. I work part time, three days a week, so my writing times are the two days I do not work, weekends, late nights, and occasionally lunch breaks at my day job (where there is a garden that is a lovely space for writing). On days when I'm writing at home, I get up, get husband and kid off to work and school, make myself a cup of tea, and get to work, just as I would if writing were a full-time occupation. I start with any research tasks I need to accomplish, then make notes and get writing. I don't turn the phone off or refuse to answer the door, and I tend not to use headphones unless everybody else in the house is asleep. When I'm writing at the wood, I get out of the house as early as I can, make sure the writing music is cued up on the iPod, and listen to music and think forward to what I'm going to write that day on the short bus journey to the wood. When I get there, I start with a walk, eventually arrive at the café where there are tables, chairs, sometimes scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast, and I write for as long as I can there, three or four hours. I finish up that day with a walk through the wood to the bus stop for my journey home.

Maybe it sounds a little routine, but I find the ritual of being in the right place physically helps quite a bit with my journey to the right place mentally.

Mine are pretty consistent in an abnormal sort of way. I write at light-speed for 30 minutes, then play around in AW for ten minutes as a break. Then repeat this for about 8-10 hours. I do pull about 2,000 words a day or much better this way. I dunno, I have to have AW on as kind of a night light to help me get through it. Since my existence is so solitary, I imagine that there is a crowd of people just inside the next door next to me. So I pop in on the party when I can.

Tri

I'm evil when I write. If you interrupt me while I'm in deep thought I'm not responsible for your blood loss. Interrupt at your own risk.

arrowqueen said:

Write a bit.
Wander into living room and have mouthful of cold coffee.
Write a bit.
Go out back door and have half a fag, while staring vacantly into space.
Write a bit.
Stare at wall. Notice seam of wall-paper looks as if it's coming away from wall. Get up. Poke it. Decide it's fine.
Write a bit.
Go out back door for other half of fag. Have chat with old lady next-door.
Write a bit.
Decide it's not going to rain after all. Wash knickers. Hang on line.
Write a bit.
Wander back into living-room. Peer hopefully into cup. Cold coffee all gone. Put on kettle, Make more coffee.
Write a bit.
Story finished.
Check over and remove mistakes.
Print out.
Check over again.
Remove more mistakes.
Reprint relevant pages.
Print cover sheet.
Fold story.
Stick in envelope for posting.

The end.

Repeat, with variations, every day.

Click to expand...

Which half of a fag are you interested in first and does he enjoy your having him? Please PM me with pictures.

louisgodwin said:

Mine? Well, they're incredibly inconsistent. I can sit down for 30 minutes and crank out 2 or 3 pages, and the next night I may sit and daydream in front of a blank screen for 2 hours with nothing to show for it except a few uninspired sentences. It's not really writer's block because it's never the same from night to night. Sometimes I feel the magic.... other times, blah!

Click to expand...

Lately, I've been writing more heavily than I normally do. In the last three days, I have finished ten chapters of my present second draft. Basically, my sessions are however they turn out. Like yours, they're pretty inconsistent. Part of the reason they're so inconsistent is that I am online so much any more. Also, I find that when I am depressed, I write more than when I feel good.

A few weeks ago, my answer would have been quite different. I would write maybe four pages a day, every day, and the work was tedious and hard. Now the work is highly enjoyable.

I think part of the reason my work is so enjoyable now, is that I am not taking myself so seriously as I did before. This makes my writing less of a chore to me and more of a fun time, something that I can actually enjoy like I did when I was a teenager.

Mine vary widely. Some days I will write (an do other writing related tasks) all day with short breaks for food and drink. Other days I seem to wander around as if I have nothing to do. Sadly, the latter happens too much.

I'd like to set some kind of loose schedule for myself and stick to it. Write for 30 minutes. Take a short break. Write for 30 minutes. Read. Write etc.
I would also like to the mood to write. I listen to a lot of radio talk shows that are very distracting. Maybe more light music, silence even. I really go for the silence when I am reading.

For me it's a self-control issue, which I am working on everyday. It's hard to be your own boss sometimes.