Day 20

Over the weekend, Rish and I attended a writers' conference. One of the panels Rish attended (without me, because I was still sleeping, and didn't make it until this hour was over) was called Full-Time vs. Part-Time Writers. One of the writers told a story about how he and his other writer friends helped each other to write. They met each other once a week at a coffee shop, but they weren't allowed to talk or hang out or any of that good stuff until they'd sat down and written for an hour.

Rish and I both liked that idea. After all, we already get together once a week. Why not force ourselves to write as part of that time?

So, we did. This week, we both sat down at the local Wendy's, and I set a timer on my phone for 30 minutes, and we wrote. I liked it, because, being away from my home computer I felt less able to waste time on the internet as I would normally be. I had to concentrate on the story I was writing and nothing else.

It was hard to know for sure how much I was getting done, because I was writing with a wireless keyboard paired via bluetooth to my phone, and the small screen rendered my paragraphs enormous. But I felt like I was totally flying through the story.

My total in the half hour was 613 words. Not bad. I think we may have to up the time to an hour instead, but I really enjoyed it.

Years ago, Rish and I both worked together. After work ended, instead of going home for the night, we both stuck around, and had to write for an hour. This feels a lot like that. I got a lot of writing done in those days, and wrote some of my best stories ever. I feel really positive about this experiment too. This is going to become one of our weekly traditions.

The writers' conference was worth the price for that piece of advice alone.