14
Jun
Tik-tok, It Don’t Stop
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At the moment, my week looks like this:
Mon: season preview for a local theatre
Tues: dinner date with bestie
Wed: potential Amanda Palmer ninja gig
Thurs: Evelyn Evelyn show
Fri: half day; making & delivering meals for ill friend
Sat: art opening; serious gardening
Sun: calling my dads; hosting a bbq?
All of these are things I’m excited about, or at least happy to do. But…if I’m working ’til 5, getting home at 6, and then going out again at 7? It doesn’t leave much time for writing.
If it was just this week, that’d be okay…but it’s not. There are a whole list of shows we want to see before they close. CapFringe is the last two weeks of July; we usually try to see 3-4 shows a week. There are summer bbqs and other invitations. And I feel horrible when I turn things down. Margaritas with friends, another play, a baseball game with Steve’s friends that I never see. I feel worse when I agree to do something–because I want to, I do–and then have to cancel because I know I’ll feel horrible if I don’t write or finish this critique. Steve understands. My friends understand. I think. But I still feel dreadful about it. A few weekends ago we weren’t invited to something, and even though I’d been publicly proclaiming how happy I was to have the day off and write, it still stung a little. I don’t want my friends to think I don’t love them. I do. So much. I’m endlessly grateful to have them in my life.
But I am determined to finish Thrice by the end of July. That gives me five weeks; I’m not counting the week I’ll be in Cozumel. That’s 6K a week. That’s 1000 words most days, which for me is about 2 hours. And that’s not counting the time it takes me to settle in. Or the requisite first-draft daydreaming. The walks with my iPod, Snow Patrol blasting, where things just click. Lazy thoughts in front of the fan while I’m half-asleep.
Writing is important too. It can’t be the thing I squeeze in.
I just have to figure out how to negotiate that, exactly.
Any tips? How do you do it?
