Star-crossed Lovers: Schedules and the Creative Process

So here's a thing I've learned about myself during this year, "the year of 2020," "the year of COVID:" once I set a schedule, I am loathe to stray from it, and when I do, it can derail my creative process. And yet, ironically, I claim to celebrate spontaneity -- which I do. Sometimes. So long as I don't have plans. (...)

(*Note, upon re-reading this entry, I wish to point out that this blog will include all the ranting and railing and celebrating that comes with writing a book, which includes what is forthcoming, and doesn't always seem obviously linked to the creative process. But if you, reader, are a fellow creative, perhaps you can empathize with how much scheduling can, in fact, impede or enhance the creative process and either stimulate or depress the Muse.*)

I am blessed to have the opportunity to work for myself and create my own schedule. It is a luxury I experienced while dabbling with a multi-level marketing business years ago, then shifting to freelance journalism, then to acquisition editing for a publishing company, and then returning back to (and in truth, still maintaining) a standard hourly job in which someone else dictates my time and schedule.

Needless to say, I was enraptured with the flexible schedule, and even encourage my husband, who works for the government, to choose positions that allow the maximal amount of flexibility while still permitting us to live the lifestyles we desire. The money is secondary - we can ALWAYS make more money. You can NEVER get your time back.

Back to my point: at the beginning of 2020, I set out to write and complete my book, a true and completed (albeit unpolished) first draft (technically the second) of the story that I've been working on, tweaking, developing, and drafting (because I HAVE written the "first book" before, though it is markedly different from this current, working volume). As I mentioned in my first post, it turns out I wrote two.

How in the spells did I do this?! (*ding ding* Insight into the book! Yes, this is one of the curses used among the characters, and because I've been working on this so long, it has invariably become a part of my mental vernacular to the point that I have to stop myself from saying it aloud at times.)

The answer: a schedule.

Sigh. Boring.

I saw a meme the other day where a writer (don't know who; who ever really reads the originators of the quotes posted on social media memes?) was quoted to say something along the lines of, "I only write when I'm inspired; so I see that I am inspired every day at 9am."

Huzzah! How much TRUTH there is in that statement! Even if the session involves dragging your unwilling Muse through the mud and shoving her in front of her metaphorical typewriter and force-pressing her fingers one-at-a-time along the keys to drag out the story.

So that's what I did. Given the fact that, through the years, I have worked and pushed and molded and tweaked, and finessed my schedule into one most would envy, I scheduled blocks of time throughout each week in which I decided I would write. (I still work more than 40+ hours on my personal training business as any entrepreneur should, though it is condensed to provide maximal flexibility throughout the week, the product of years learning how to say no, when to say yes, and how to serve my clients unendingly without robbing myself of my own needs so that I may continue to serve them. It is a delicate balance, and being that I have always served the populous in my various forms of work, it remains challenging to this day. This may seem unrelated to the creative process, but you must understand that my work as a personal trainer is almost as equally important to my soul as my writing. I am thus torn.)

Thus has been my schedule (for the most part, certain weeks, needs, etc., notwithstanding) throughout 2020:

Mondays and Wednesdays: Write for two hours (preferably between 3-5pm).

Tuesdays and Thursdays: No writing (usually). They are quite busy at the studio (C-FIT Studio), so I usually crawl into bed with my notebook and flesh out the bones of the scene I will be writing the following day or answering questions my Muse and I couldn't figure out the day before.

Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays: Write again for two hours.

So that is, scheduled, 8 hours of dedicated writing time throughout the week. I find I am much happier, much more flexible in the personal training side of things, much more SPONTANEOUS if these 8 hours (or more) are permitted to happen.

Oh, but wait! Did I not just say how I valued spontaneity?! And what about simple LIFE? (Like, oh crap, my five cats ate through the food already -- because, of course, five cats eat a TON of food; better stop what I'm doing so I can feed these adorable predators.) Sometimes life wedges its foot in your plans, and you (ahem, I) am unable to stick to my schedule.

This causes me an illogical amount of internal turmoil, which invariably causes me to, once I finally arrive at the screen, spend a good 20-30 minutes of invaluable writing time pining over how long it took me to get here, and then struggling to calm my CNS so I can actually focus and be productive (mind you, this is absolutely opposite of what the Muse desires. You cannot rush the Muse, although you can coax her out with gentle nudges).

My thought process: You mean that, for this day only, I can't write at exactly 3pm on a Monday, even though with my current schedule, I usually don't get started until 3:30pm anyway, and sometimes even 4pm depending on if I decide to swing by the store on my way home? You mean I have to start writing at 4pm and thereby finish at 6pm, meaning we won't be eating dinner until about 7pm, which usually happens anyway because I piddle around the house or chase/play with cats?

This week is one of those weeks. This Wednesday, I have a single appointment for a client who has a crazy schedule this week. I am bending the rules a bit for her and coming in during a time I usually would be writing. No big (this is a lie I tell myself; I always fret about threatening this writing time). I'll just squish the hours between the time I have to be home and go back to work. (Oh! I know! Maybe I'll break it up into an hour here and an hour afterwards, and ask my wonderful husband to make dinner that night -- he usually makes dinner Tuesdays and Thursdays, I do Mondays and Wednesdays, and we split the weekends. Sometimes I write for an hour chunk here and there instead of two anyway. Sometimes. Not usually. No big deal, because I have Monday unmarred, so it'll be fine, right? Right. Maybe. Sure. Let's go with that.).

Alas, but wait! Another client -- because it IS going to be December this upcoming week, and with Christmas around the corner, everyone's schedules are about to go re-DONK -- needs to come later than usual on Monday.

(...)

Yes. I decided to bend there as well. Why? Because I should, by all rights, be able to get started writing at 4pm, finish by 6pm, make dinner and eat by 7pm (like we do anyway), and then spend the rest of the evening inside Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy (on book two), as I try (in vain) to get my cats to cuddle me to sleep.

So what's the point of this rambling?

#1: So you can see that, as a reader, your authors do not merely "sit down" and write. The Muse is a finicky bitch who needs to be coddled and hates to be rushed and if you rush her, she leaves you high and dry and left wondering what on earth you were thinking in the first place (forgive the language, but, well... she is).

#2: To share the process. Because while this isn't directly writing, I am already struggling with worrying about sitting down to write tomorrow (I have the rest of the day today; I could be writing more today to make up for it. I could. I may. We'll see. Again, it's a process in and of itself). Writing a book is more than just sitting down and putting words on paper. It's a process that involves introspection, design, problem-solving, and for many, peace of mind in order to create the mental space needed to write.

This topic was chosen as my "first" blog post because, as we move forward from here, you may understand that along any other things I choose to fret about regarding the process, this dichotomy between serving my clients and serving my own soul and accepting an ever-changing schedule (which I actually prize), provides its own sense of challenge to the creative process and will likely remain a daily struggle.

That said, I've already written my two hours today, as I did yesterday, and Friday. I am nearing the end of book two and trying to wrap it up neatly so I can begin editing book one, and it is challenging. It is almost like the moment I put a word-count limit on something, then my Muse decides to just prattle, and prattle, and prattle...

Much like this.

So welcome to the TRUE glimpse into what you can expect on this blog. The goal is to finish book two before Christmas Eve, take the rest of 2020 off, and start January with fresh eyes for the edit and polish required for book one. That said, this plot certainly moves along at its own pace. But isn't that the joy of it? I, too, reader, am in it for the ride.

Thanks for joining me on the whirlwind of today's fretting.

Until next time (which will likely involve some frustrations regarding the closing of scenes and books and word counts as book two refuses to close into a tidy neat package), have a marvelous day, and don't forget to get your hours in. Your heart knows what it wants to do. Shut off the brain, go outside, and go for it.

Ciao, my friends.

J. R. DuBois