DanBailey.net cyclist, writer, font designer, geek

A Minor Epiphany

I've been thinking about writing lately, and how my productivity has basically tanked since I departed college for the RealWorld™. There is a litany of contributing factors to that, and I think that with this post, I'll be scratching the surface of that set.

First and foremost, it's because I am not regularly in the habit of writing fiction. In college, I was forced to sit down and put electrons to storage medium on a regular basis. Whether that was straight-up writing of fiction, or doing any number of writing exercises, I was still hammering out words on a regular basis.

Secondly, my filter was more flimsy than it is now. As I write now, I second-guess everything I put to paper. I'm uncertain as to exactly why that is, but I suspect that a contributing factor is that I don't have anyone else's work to server as a benchmark for my own. In college, I would frequently look at the works of my peers and be absolutely aghast at the notion that some of these people thought that they were going to become writers. It was good for my ego. And as a result, I wrote more.

The trick now, of course, is going to be finding a way to replicate those conditions in such a way that I can maintain my relationship with my fianceé, my job, and my other time commitments without any sort of negative impact.

Right now there's too much going on to expect to be able to crank out 2000 words or more per day, but I can commit to doing a writing exercise per day and 250-500 words before leaving for the office (or during lunch). I've got 3 AM Epiphany and The Write-Brain Workbook, both ready for use.

I've got to start somewhere. Eventually, I've got to find myself a writers' group, too.