Day 3: Another Sleepless Night?

Just popping in to say that it's the end of Day 3 of All Writing All the Time and I just finished the first draft of Valkyrie's Kiss!
Whew!
I can't believe it. I've been fiddling with this piece for months!

And now it's nighttime. This is the hardest time of day for me now.  The only drawback, in fact, of AWAT is that I have no way of letting go of the day. I can't read or watch TV, so I keep working. It's too late to fire up the vacuum cleaner (sleeping kids wouldn't like that) and by the time I'm done, my sweet husband is asleep. So after working furiously into the night, I sit and stare at the dog....and wait for sleep. I'm thinking I might try meditation tonight...try to clear my head.

How about you? Any suggestions for getting into sleep mode without books? I confess, I'm at a loss!

My first day without books or TV

Day 1 of 60

Well, I'm 40 minutes away from achieving my daily writing goal! This being the first day back to school for the kids, I had a lot of errands to run, but I followed all of my new rules. The hardest part was lunch. I ate here at the house by myself and I usually watch Miss Marple or Midsommer Murders while I eat. (Can't watch zombie movies while I eat!) So today I listened to music and wrote a letter.

I already feel different. My mind is clear and focused on my current WIP (work in progress for my non-writer friends and followers). It wasn't hard to avoid the television or even the news. I'll admit that I saw a freebie excerpt and had to stop myself from reading it. I even felt a little bit guilty for passing it up. In the future, I think I'll just print them or save them to a file on my desktop. Precious gems for my future reward. :)

My biggest challenge comes tonight. I always, always, always read before bed. I read even if we are coming home from a late night party and dawn is tickling the window. I read on Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, and every other 'eve'. It's my usual way of disconnecting from the day. It's a balm on frayed nerves, a distraction from the next day's stresses and stressors. Thankfully I am allowed to read my own words so I think I will read over something I wrote years ago. See if it has any value. I still have to clear away the pile of books on my nightstand. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow morning....hopefully I'll be able to sleep without my book babies!

Cleaning out the Clutter (in my head)

 

Whew! Another holiday season comes to an end! I've put away the tree and the stockings, vacuumed up the plastic pine needles and am ready to get back to writing! During all the Christmas craziness, I did some hard thinking about why writing has taken a back seat during the past five or six months. I didn't come up with anything.

 

But I do feel bombarded with information. My head is filled with voices that are not my own. I want to hear my own voice again. I want to see what it's like to live with only my own thoughts.

 

So, my New Year's Resolution this year - in addition to the usual post-holiday attempts to eat healthy, workout and burn off the extra pounds I've put on since November - is to put writing front and center again. To do this, I am going to abide by a few new rules. Some of these self-imposed restrictions are tough, so I'm going to follow them January 8th thru March 8th. (With school aged kids, I am a prisoner of the public school calendar!) During Spring Break, I'll re-evaluate and see how effective my rules are for increasing productivity and reducing distractions!

 

So (drumroll, please) here are the rules I will be following:

 No TV Monday thru Saturday

I will allow myself one day of television distractions, mostly because I can't bear to miss the end of the football season and the beginning of Downton Abbey, Season 3. However, if this single day of television becomes an all-day marathon, it will have to go. (Funny thing is, I never think of myself as a big TV watcher. I guess we'll see, right?)

 No reading

Now this is a tough one - but like most book lovers, if I get into a book I just can't put the darn thing down. I can't tell you how many writing hours I've frittered away reading other writers' work! Completely enjoyable, but not very conducive to my own writing. This is not a rule I can follow after March 8th, but I would like to try to eliminate other author voices for a short period of time and see how that affects my relationship with my own words.

 No reading and no TV means no news

This is a tough one for me. I'm a little bit of a news junkie. In fact, if my husband could find a way to eliminate all news media from our home, he would do it in a heartbeat. Hopefully nothing interesting or troublesome will happen for the next 60 days!  Of course there is always TV Sunday....

 
I will write a MINIMUM of four hours a day

This is/was my usual routine, so that should be fairly easy. And without books and television to distract me, I imagine I will exceed that goal most days.

 Limited Online Media Time

During writing time, I will NOT check Facebook, Twitter, the news, or any other online media. I will also turn off my phone.

That's it. I'll be blogging as I go!  Wish me luck!