Time to Write

Do You Have a Schedule?

A young woman writing at 2:00 am

I figure people must have a favorite time to write. I try to make a full day of it. I’m usually on gas early in the morning, before brunch. I don’t tend to eat breakfast much anymore, and what happens is I’m so involved in what I’m writing, I don’t come up for air until it’s almost lunchtime. I have had that first cup of coffee, though. I count on that. So, I suppose it’s about three or four hours that I write in the morning. After lunch, I’m usually tired, and so many times I will go take a nap. Sometimes I have a hard time staying asleep at night, and so five or six hours is it for me. It’s just not enough.

Today, I slept from 1 to 3 pm. Awoke fresh and ready to rock and roll, putting the finishing touches on three pieces. One for Substack, one for Medium, and the last short one for Friday on Facebook.

I have decided to do something new with my unfinished pieces. Usually, if they are short, I’ll just toss them, like if they are 50 words or less. If they don’t interest me when I look them over again, off to the compost pile they go. However, lately I’ve just been leaving longer pieces open on my desktop. Except my computer is getting wonky. I’m not entirely sure what is going on, other than it is three-quarters full, and according to Norton, this is bad business. I think I might need a new computer, or perhaps I should transfer my stuff onto an external hard drive. What I think is taking up all the room on it might be all the mp4 files I’ve accumulated as I’ve been making YouTube videos. Tell me what you think.

In the past, I would transfer these partially written pieces into a file called 12.doc. The reason it was called 12 was that, once upon a time, Windows asked me if I wanted to save something rather than delete it. My finger slipped, and I said yes. Windows called it 12 for December before I intervened. So, it’s always been 12.doc. It is 54 pages long right now. So, it’s like shoving stuff under the bed. Once there, I forget all about it. It’s been a while since I fished anything out of 12.

So, I made a new rule for myself the other day. I could only have three partially finished documents going at a time. I will make the time to revisit 12.doc and fish things out. Some of it doesn’t make sense to use anymore as they are dated, but others can be freshened up and finished. In the meantime, I will make an effort to finish the stuff I haven’t finished. Perhaps I will be able to get more articles out there. I do like scheduling them at least a month or more in advance. That gives me time for larger projects (like doing our annual bookkeeping) without getting behind in what I publish.

The next step, I think, will be for me to think in terms of larger projects, like a book. That feels right, too. I might decide to have certain days just for the book rather than waiting for inspiration to strike. I mean, this writing for me is a job. I don’t get paid for it, at least not now, but it’s my own job. One that I work harder at than I ever did in an office. In an office, typically, you go home at the end of the day. With my writing, I’ll wake up from a dead sleep with something to write about, which is better than staring at a blank piece of paper waiting for inspiration to strike.

But I figure, if I can split my day into three sessions with morning writing, afternoon, and sometimes some evening writing, then maybe I can give myself days that will be devoted to the Project, whatever that is going to be.

My first thought was to finish up the four books I’ve already written and get them submitted to Amazon. What I like about Amazon is that they take care of the ISBNs for you. It’s just settling on the size and the cover art and stuff like that. I did a series of low-content notebooks to get a feel for how to select page sizes for the paperbacks.

I have yet to do an e-book for Kindle, so that will be an adventure. I use Canva to illustrate my articles if Unsplash doesn’t have what I want and to design the notebooks with the book covers. I also use Canva to produce the videos I make for YouTube. Once upon a time, many years ago, I used Microsoft Publisher and Adobe programs for illustrating, but the learning curve for Adobe is so lengthy. Canva is much easier to use. I still have Publisher and will occasionally do something there like my business cards, but for the most part, I use Canva.

I’ve used Word, Atticus, and Scrivener to write the books. I like them all.

I went the old brick-and-mortar route for publishing a long time ago. Eighteen months after having finished a book that took me three years to write, I called it quits. That was back in the day when writers were expected to observe publishing house etiquette and only submit to one publisher at a time. Tell me if they still do it. There were no digital files in those days, and so submissions were on paper. That book was three inches thick. There was postage, money spent to copy it, and never expect to get it back again. I would wait months to get those rejection letters in the mail. Somewhere, they are still here. Seven of them, as I recall. Stephen King kept all of his stuck on a nail on the ceiling in the attic where he wrote.

Anyway, that’s what I’m thinking about.

Thanks for reading. Subscribe for more, and I’ve listed a bunch of places I’m out there on the web if you are so inclined.

🌺Pauline Evanosky

🌺My Links:
The Best Stuff for Kids on YouTube
Just Passing Through on YouTube
Talking To Spirit on YouTube
Talking To Spirit on Substack
Talking To Spirit — my website
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