FRIDAY 12/4
recently wrote out a guide to student concerned about his production
you, dear regulators, already know all this, you been w/me on the ground:
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one, you got to be into it, I spend an ungodly amount of time strategizing that weeks production
schedule, depending on what else is happening in my life it recalibrates damn near every day
the deal is to get into the habit of it - when I started it was difficult, now its just a habit
and the big dividing line is who figures daily production out, who doesn't
I have two rubrics, time and pages, I lean harder on time put in in the earlier stages of a
novel because it's a lot of sitting there thinking, I guess that will work for shorts too
you have to figure some things out, how you work best, do you work in spurts, are you systematic, planning out
your work days, or do you just burn it thru and hope, and trust and believe, or do you use both as called for
and then you got to figure out what time is best for you, are you most alert in the early morning, the afternooN,
what is best for you, a lot of experimentation this phase, a week working mornings, a week working late at
night, see what works best - ive found morning to be best for me, one because im alert in mornings, two because my mind is not cluttered with reality, im close to my dream state in the early morning
so the basic is 3 hours, 3 pages: I like to do 3 hours a day, 3 hours a day I feel strong, I feel like im kicking lifes ass, so I don't have ever HAVE class scheduled before 12 - that's so I can work and then get some rest OR or prepare for class, whatever because im always behind becvause im always squeezing one more work hour in
so page count is not as impo to you w/shorts as is in with novel, so for shorts I would go
with phases - the key is to break your task down into doable daily phases,
lets say im outlining today, I sit there until the outline is done, say a couple of solid hours,
I don't stop in the middle of a phase because if you stop in the middle of a phase then
you have to start all over when you pick it back up again (which is what im doing now, had to put my
holybook down to do novel, when i pick up holybook again i will have lost my momentum, such is life)
or say you've decided youre going to rough out a given scene this phase, when you sit down, you
don't stand up again until you have done it, rough and ready but done it, you've finished the phase
if you have a longer project, novel or novella, you still thinking in phasing the phases but you also moving forward steadily –
lets say I got a 200 page manuscript I want done by feb, so I have a 3 months window there, lets say 90 days
I always schedule 2 days off because if I don't I will take them anyway
and feel like im off my discipline, but if I scheduled it im still in discipline,
so I got 5 days a week for 3 weeks, that's about 20 days a month, 60 days functional, that's about 3 – 4 pages a day to get me to the promisedland – which is good during down months like dec and the summer, but probably unreasonable when you doing schoolhouse obligations too,
id say 2 pages a day is reasonable, I mean if you cant do two pages a day you arent rreally serious about this
so youre expecting 10 pages a week, 10 pages a week you the man/woman, less than that and reality is kicking your ass, you might as well stayed at home
cant get your discipline on you need to get off the field, you just cluttering up the arena with your sorry carcass - basically you got to worship at the altar of discipline -
discipline and production, cant have one w/o the other
but for short pieces you might want to think in phases
so lets say schoolhouse took it all this week, weekend you 10 pages behind, well i guess its crunch city then
once again, if you seirous about this a 10 page weekend aint that big a thing if thats what it take to win
every week, say Sunday, think about what can I do this week, taking all my obligations into consideration every week I have a plan and I judge my seriousness about life according to how I follow the plan and
i don't let life knock me off my game
lose a leg, dont sit around crying the blues
write about it,
I remember man years where I came up with all kinds of schemes to get around the fact
that if I was serious about this I had to buckle down daily on the grind, it's the only way,
i got buddies who were better writers but they never go serious about production
and even then you might not win, but if you don't learn to grindhouse
you aint even in the ring, don't get your discipline on you just a wannabe
The other critical thing is when you give yourself a deadline. Its like a
religious obligation, you do not miss deadlines. What you can do is
you can fudge them, for instance the end Of the year is always a deadline for me, always some production Goal
I’m trying to hit, right now trying to finish a new draft of novel, Its absolutely impossible but I’ve never let that stop me
Got to give yourself goals a civilian couldn’t possibly do, unreasonable goals. If you’re going to be a
literary man/woman you got to be a obsessive about this. Reasonable won’t get you to the promise land,
so what happens is that all of a sudden my deadline is looming, that's when I get really really desperate.
first thing i do is lower my standards, what been unacceptable is now okay cause i got to finish the draft
then i buckle down and do 6 and 9 hour shifts, (multiples of 3)
& sometimes, god love the desperate, im hitting 12 hours shifts
And that's when I hit the zone and the work is flowing like rainwater. That's when you got your mojo on. And generally I’m still working up to about two weeks into January ie until I have to put it down and focus on schoolhouse obligations
I still count that 2 weeks leeway as making my deadline. I am hard on myself but I am also understanding
Cause most of the time I just want to sit there and chill, watch movies that don’t make me think
Sometimes the internal computer has not yet processed what you have scheduled. You have programmed it with effort and focus, then you just switch over to something else you got scheduled and when you come back to it and the computer has processed it
And its flowing like rainwater and you wonder how you ever had trouble with this
You constantly calibrating and you just don’t take no for an answer. Get your work done you winning,
don’t get work done and life is kicking your ass and taking your name, might as well be a civilian
once you find your groove you just maintain it, constantly
recalibrating it to get more bang for your time investment
reading over what i just wrote i see i use constantly recalibrating many times
well its so critical ima say it two more times - constantly recalibrating
early on its hard but by the time you my age it's a habit, constantly recalibrating it as your life demands change and you learn more about your self and every year you better at building your life around production
last thing is that I talk a strong game but much too often I don’t make my count or my hours, sometimes the schoolhouse just got you humping, or you just chilling
do they still give R&R, Vietnam you were given what they called rest & relaxationwhere they sent you to some exotic locale for a weeks to chill out
I consider rest and relaxation an integral part of any serious discipline, I don't fault myself for time outs
but I don't miss like a week at a time, not if i can help it - that's a no can do, 3, 4 days and
im panicking, getting all desperate and focusing full court press till I’m back on schedule
that's all I can think of now
good luck, soldier
rdoc
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