Finding the Time

My second biggest hurdle to writing (the first being the repeated application of butt to chair) is finding the time. I work full time, Monday to Friday, and I also have a part-time job that claims between 10 and 14 hours of my weeknights and weekends. 

For this challenge, I resolved to get up an hour early each morning, and I can see already what an adjustment that's going to be. It is very, very difficult for me to go from work, to more work, and then straight to bed when I get home, which is exactly what I'd need to do to have a crazy productive morning of writing abandon. After a 14-hour day, I feel like I've earned my evening, even if it's already 10pm and I have another 14-day waiting for me tomorrow.

One good thing has already come out of this, though: I know that I can write longhand during my commute between the first job and the second. I don't know if this is true for all writerlies, but at least when starting something new, I work best with very small parameters and a short amount of time. This way, there's no space for me to become overwhelmed by setting, plot, character, meaning -- "We were sitting too close together" and all you have is 15 minutes to figure out what the next person says. Go!

By way of update to Week One, I have several small notebook pages of banter-like dialogue written out. I haven't decided yet whether I'm just getting out the dialogue now (I've never written a story that way, but it could be interesting) or if this is going to be a 10-minute play. Usually a decision like that would stop me from going further until I'd made a choice one way or the other, but this morning's hour is already up and all that's left now is my commute between jobs one and two. 

There's no time to think. Only to write.