Tuesday, June 29, 2010

I Must Write, Come Hell or High Water...

Or, in my case, come 10 consecutive days of 98 degree-90 percent humidity weather too hot for the kids to play outside, and for some odd reason now that it's summer vacation, the kids CAN wake up before 7AM and be UP and do on a daily basis. Up at 6, sometimes 5am. During the summer...hello!

But...STILL, I must write. Only question is, when??? My writing time - the time when I get to write UNinterrupted (I've been interrupted 3 times so far during this one sentence now) - is between the hours and 5 and 7AM. Most days I wake up at 5AM to write. Other days I write at night, after I've taken care of everything and everyone all day. Except I've never been much of a night owl. Especially now. For some reason my insomnia stopped (that's how I wrote the book in the first place!) and now I'm exceptionally tired by 10pm. It's very odd. I've never slept well before in my life, never been able to fall asleep. Now, it seems all I can do IS sleep...maybe I'm just catching up...

For some other strange reason, I love to wake up early in the morning to write. It doesn't work every day, particularly after a night of the kids tag-teaming me, one waking up right after the other, only for another to wake up once I get the other back to bed, all night long... On those days I fail miserably to get moving in the AM.

Life, health, drama...time!!! Darn it, I need to finish my book. But when, where, how?!

This is how...

Maybe if I write it down, here, for all the world to see (myself included) I will keep to the strict schedule of writing/editing daily. I've been able to do it before (insomnia days of the past). If you need to, write it down for yourself too.

COME HELL OR HIGH WATER, I must finish this book this summer.

I, Lia Mack, will wake up at 5am to write. I will not allow anyone to interrupt me until 7am. There are books, cereal, toys galore in this house. They (my kids) are old enough to entertain themselves and I MUST finish this book. Period. Plus, no one needs to be awake so early in the morning. Therefore they can either go back to bed or read quietly on the couch. I am not available between the hours of 5 and 7am. I repeat, I am not available until after 7am.

(For a give-all person like myself, I've never been selfish with my time, so I know this is going to be hard. But I have to do it. I have to. If I keep saying it to myself, I might just do it...No, I take that back. I WILL do it. I have to.)

IF, for some reason (which I have yet to understand) I am woken up over and over again all night long and I am not able to rise and shine at 0500 hours, I will set aside two consecutive hours somewhere in my day, probably at 2200 hours or later. Too bad that I'm tired. I, Lia Mack, need to finish this book. Period.

Ok, so there it is, my scheduled in writing time goal thingy. Written for all, myself included, to see. If need be, I will pop in a movie once a week so the kids will be preoccupied and I can write during the day. Wow, writing with my wits about me, during the day...can it be done?

I have someone who wants to see a finished product in October. Therefore I need to complete my final edits by at least August so I can go over it, shall I need to, one last time again, to polish and shine.

I know how to edit. I just can't seem to rub together any amount of consecutive time without being pulled out of my alternate writing universe by little people screaming, crying, throwing a fit because he touched my book, she moved my Lego, trips to the library, trips the park, trips the grocery store, laundry, my sister won't play chess right, my brother took off my dolls clothes again, I got to go potty and can't undo my belt, I'm hungry, he bumped me, she punched me, the dog peed on the carpet, the dog brought a dead squirrel in the house again, grandma needs a ride to the airport, dinner is burning, there are five fire trucks outside and my mother-in-law is coming over in five minutes...yep, I have time to write, as I'm sure you do to ;)

BUT, come hell or high water, we'll get it done. We will. We will...