Day 16: Sometimes even coffee can’t help!

The most challenging part of my book process is also the most basic: the writing of it. Words from my creative mind to the page–yeah, that’s the hardest. It all comes down to time, and to produce a book I cannot rely on summer breaks only. I must write during the school year.

Photo: dfactory (Creative Commons Flickr)

It’s either 4:00 a.m. or 4:00 p.m., pick my poison. Yes, I am a morning person–without an alarm I wake up at 5:00 a.m., don’t hate me!

Even so, there’s early and then there’s insanity. No way can I write at four in the morning!

So it’s after school or during school. Yes, sometimes I write alongside my high school students,  using the ten-minute free write for blog posts and chapter ideas–and those ever-growing lists of stuff to be done. Their faces at the beginning of the year, when I hold up last year’s word-filled notebook (the same kind as theirs) and flip through the pages! A study in wonder. “I’ve worked in here to the timer, same as you,” I tell them. “And I’ve pulled from my creative mind chapters of material. Right at this table.”

The remainder of the process–editing, formatting, promotion–can be boiled down to tasks. Things to be done, which don’t involve filling blank pages with creative thought. (Well, unless it’s a bio!) When I have enough books in my “stable,” perhaps some of these can be hired out.

Five minutes to go! The remaining two chapters of Darcy By Any Other Name are scheduled for my after-school time, so I’m being strict about blogging before school. I’ll be signing off and heading up to audio-visual storage to snag a projector for writing class. Otherwise my high school students will be huddled around my laptop.

Thanks for stopping by. Oh, and Happy Monday!