Monday 15 October 2012

Writing, routines and running

Apart from my 3 day a week salaried job I find it really hard to get into a routine.  When I was younger, I hated routine and rebelled against it so maybe I’m paying for it now.  Because I want to be able to establish a strict writing routine, like you should.  The trouble is, life often seems so chaotic and unordered and things happen so you constantly have to change and be flexible about plans made.  At least it provides variety.

The two things I would like to fix more are my writing and running.  The latter is quite erratic and gets squeezed in between everything else, as does my writing.  Even when I put aside a chunk of time for the creative stuff I end up side-tracked by marketing and admin.  There never seem to be enough hours in the day to fit everything in. so I am constantly chasing my tail and feeling exhausted.   If only I could get up early, go for a run, write, eat, write again, ignore the phone and emails and achieve a worthy 2000 words a day. 

When I was in my twenties I easily wrote 1000 words EACH WAY on my hourly commute to London but these days managing 2000 words a day as standard would be a Herculean task.   That’s not to say it doesn’t happen sometimes, when I have deadlines to meet.  Then I go crazy, glue myself to the laptop, forget to eat, drink, or even go to the loo until my target is achieved.  Not very healthy, but at least I have the capability. 

Although I struggle physically with my running, it is great for clearing the cobwebs and playing with ideas and I usually come back from a run with my head full of creative possibilities which I try to retain until I can write them down.  Because of this blog, I do write almost every day, which was an ambition achieved, so that is positive. But those writers I meet who turn down coffee and meetings because they are working on their novel inspire respect – and envy.  How do they manage to ring fence (to use management speak) time for this?  How do they stay disciplined enough to keep focussed? My brain goes off on tangents all the time, so I fail miserably on this score.  If anyone has any suggestions about how to successfully stick to a routine, I’d love to hear from you. 

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