Happy 2019!
It’s been a while since I wrote my last post. For good reason, though: I’ve been busy writing!
Update on my Writing
Darksea
is still getting shopped around at smaller presses, my next novel’s word count
is slowly growing, I finished and submitted another short story, and I’m
re-tweaking two other shorts for re-submission.
Additionally, I’m continuing to write articles for Gay Parent Magazine, and my foray into the world of Ghostwriting is slowly producing fruit.
All told, I couldn’t shouldn’t be happier with how things are progressing, writing-wise. (See what I did there?)
There’s always room for tweaking a routine.
I tried something called Tiny Habits in the fall, which resulted
in a… well, tiny improvement in my
daily writing schedule (tiny, but one that has had an effect on my writing
habits every day since then!). Tiny Habits, created by Stanford Professor BJ
Fogg, is fun, easy, and free to try. I
highly recommend it – a ‘session’ only takes five days. You really have nothing to lose by doing so.
Chunking Tasks Throughout the Day
With
more room for improvement, I enlisted hubby’s help to set aside chunks of my
day for specific writing tasks (previous
to this, our calendar simply said: “Gary – Writing”, which was far too vague for
this expert procrastinator + excuse-finder).
So now,
my Monday to Sunday schedule looks a little something like:
- 5:30 – 7:00 am – Fiction Writing;
- 9:30 – 11:00 am – Ghost Writing;
- 7:30 – 9:00 pm – Extra Writing.
(with one of my Ghost Writing sessions being set aside for “writing administration”)
That’s
been working pretty well so far…
…which
brings us to DIY MFA!
I’d seen adverts for Gabriela Pereira’s program for some time, and it had caught my interest several times. In a nutshell, this do-it-yourself Masters-of-fine-arts is a “system or framework for your writing life that will help you create a customized educational plan that works for you.” Gabriela states that, when you boil the MFA right down, you find a universal formula consisting of three elements:
writing + reading + community = MFA
I’m on day 2 of the program, so I don’t have a lot to offer beyond that description at this point. One element of the program, however, is regular prompts to write, which I will be following*, with regular posts here, over the next month or so.
*I said it, so I’d better do it now, eh?
…Here
goes!
