It’s day three and I’ve decided to start my sessions with the blog post instead of ending with it. Its a useful warm up and I can use it to put me in the right mindset. If I’m lucky, the focus I choose for the blog post will carry forward into what I write, or how I go about writing.

Speaking of, I tried out Brandon Sanderson’s writing schedule that I talked about in the previous post yesterday. Well actually I only did half of it, and it was still a lot. He describes himself as a ‘night writer’ and has a daily writing session starting at 10PM and going as long as necessary to get the work done. This was the half of his schedule I tried and it was brutal, mainly because I made the crucial rookie mistake of leaving ‘work done’ undefined. Usually I just write until I can’t or don’t want to anymore, but when you only go to bed when you’re finished that doesn’t work very well. I was already tired by midnight, and so I felt the work was done but I hadn’t written much at all. Not a half-day’s work anyway. I kept going till about one in the morning, but it was pretty weak stuff, so I defaulted to editing some existing work which I find a lot less intensive than creating from scratch. I need to solve the problem of getting a consistent amount of output from a squishy, inconsistent organ that likes to think it knows when to quit.

The solution I’m going with is to have a defined word count and at least a rough plan to tackle the day. I’m going to start with a 1500 word goal across two daily sessions, with an emphasis on completing it in the first. This output will be my ‘bread and butter,’ short stories, article submissions I want to target, and of course a large chunk will be for Oneiromancer. I’m hoping to push the word count higher as time goes on, but I’m not afraid to go lower if I need to start slow. I’ll see how it goes. I’m not as sure about the length of each session though. I’m considering going with two four-hour sessions to make an eight hour workday like I’m used to. At the end of the day though, I think this will be up to how I’m feeling day to day, and how that effects my output. If I need longer to hit the goal then so be it. If I hit it early I’ll just try to see how far I can get before I need to go do something else.

The other session will focus on what I’m going to call ‘housekeeping.’ The logistic side of writing. During this period I’m going to find publications to submit to, learn new techniques or find new resources to learn from, network, and I’ll take a field trip now and again to fill out a reading list from the bookstore. Not to mention, I’ll have to use this period to figure out how to find an audience. I think the blog is the first step down that path, but it will need support. This is starting to feel like an actual job now that I write all that down. Housekeeping is probably the session that I’ll dread the most, but ultimately this is the part that will make or break the Dangerous Day Job. Content is nothing without contentees.

My fingers feel warm enough, so here goes day three, session number one. Wish me luck!

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley