When it’s storming everywhere but my brain

By Mike in Featured

July 11, 2014

I need a writing schedule. I mean I need a list of blog topics from which I can choose that will consistently, day-after-day, give me a substantial, meaningful direction for the daily blog post.

I’m not yet there.

Truth is, I’m writing more than ever. I’m cranking out lots of articles, some of them good ones, here and at the Examiner as well as for clients. And I’m doing theater stuff, and church stuff, and yard stuff.

Okay, maybe not so much yard stuff.

So I get to this certain point in the evening, the Examiner posts are done, the client articles are done or as done as they’ll get in the evening when my brain starts to dissolve. And still, to keep up with my self-imposed schedule, I need to come up with a blog post.

But generally by ten o’clock or later, I’m too tired to take another lap around the writer’s block. Wednesday night, actually Thursday morning, I was up working after a theater board meeting until after one a.m. Needless to say when the 5:15 get-your-butt-to-the-gym alarm went off, I did not comply.

Don’t judge.

Here’s what I know I need to do. I need a schedule. I need to not wait until the night before to come up with the post. Now, granted, I do have a list of subjects and links of things about which to write.

But when I’ve spent the evening, and sometimes the whole day writing things I have to write, it’s hard to force myself to write the other stuff. I’d rather be cranking out the next chapter in the novel.

While I’m still in recovery, I could quite easily fire off a fistful of political posts and lose a whole regiment of Facebook friends.

But, no. I’m not going to do that.

Here’s the plan.

Sometime over the weekend, I will at a minimum outline the posts for next week. Maybe beyond.

I’ll be flexible if something comes up about which I really feel an urge to write (non-political, of course).

And eventually, I’ll have that list ready for several weeks out.

This is a learning process. Being exceedingly brilliant is hard work.

I know you thought it was natural.

I posted this as my Facebook status Thursday night:

I have lots of writing to do. Part of me thinks I should have picked up a bottle of Jack. That may not be efficient, but I’d write lots.

A friend replied that it was Hemingwayesque.

I tend to think more Faulkner, but let’s not quibble over good liquor.

If you trust the Internet, Hemingway was supposed to have said, “Write drunk; edit sober.”

That might work for the novel. It doesn’t work for technical writing that’s already making my brain hurt.

So, writing plans. Do you have one?
Do you have a daily schedule time to write?
A daily word count you have to meet?
A daily list of topics?
How does this work for you?

Or, if you can’t answer those questions, what’s your writing beverage of choice?

I know this post is rambling. Maybe it’s because I’ve started the serious countdown toward our week at the beach. I have to hang on for about another month.

But there’s a stretch of sand that’s calling out for my buttprint.

Now, there’s something I could write about.

When it’s storming everywhere but my brain

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