Tuesday started well with me reading another chapter in The Organised Writer. I read a chapter before bedtime the night before too. Key advice this time is to not check social media and emails before work starts, the idea being it’s best to start work with what the author calls a ‘clean mind’. (I know at least one person in real life who will agree with this. 😉)
The advice is to save emails and phone calls until after a writing session, and to leave SM until the end of the day. Which does leave me at a bit of a loss of what to do over breakfast or while I’m finishing my first cup of tea of the day, as I’ve always been of the opinion that it’s out of the way then until I have finished writing work. I could read, I suppose.
As with everything, I will give it a go, and if it works I will adopt it. I’m always willing to try ideas and suggestions.
Next up was the People’s Friend writing hour on X, which I joined in with again. While I was in there, I took the opportunity to have a 5-minute declutter of old posts. This is the ONLY reason I’ll even be going in there soon. Everything else is auto-posted.
What should have been the first job of the day was actually the next job, and that was to brainstorm the fallen angel story. Oh. My. Goodness. Did I say I was struggling with being so out of my comfort zone with some of these? Well… As I was writing out the brief, by hand, a brilliant idea occurred to me. Or I think it’s brilliant at least. It may fizzle out and it may not be brilliant at all. But Fallen Angel is now called… well, let’s say it’s had a title change.
I ended up outlining an entire story that even include two different endings. What’s the betting the finished product ends up with a third ending?
Over dinner, I caught up on the day’s competitions. I’m still having dinner at my desk and it’s too easy to sit and do the competitions. I could read a book, but I’d still be staring at my computer, still sitting in the same position, still able to quickly surf SM and the rest of the world wide web. (Does anyone still call it the world wide web?) The idea is to get me away from my desk and the PC for at least some time during the day.
I already worked out how to disconnect from the internet and how to stop it from connecting automatically. But if I want to write first thing in the day without the distraction, I have two choices:
- I can write longhand
- I can take the laptop somewhere and not turn the internet on
While I’m creating directly into Scrivener, #1 isn’t an option really. But I do plan to start writing longhand more, when I’ve started to plan my time better. This means it would be useful to be able to create blog posts offline too. So then, of course, I fell down a rabbit hole looking for offline blog editor/creators…
Several hours later I discovered that WordPress has an offline editor. I’d seen that the mobile and iOS versions had that facility, but everyone said I’d need Jetpack to create offline blog posts…
…well, whaddya know… I have Jetpack too…
So then I looked for things like emojis I could use offline too and the only thing I could do there was copy and paste the online emojis into a blank Word document, but they were all black and white. I lost more time looking for coloured versions before deciding that, actually, mono emojis might be much more cool than coloured ones… and I copied and pasted a few in… And looky here: 👀 ❌ ✅ 👍
So, now I’m all set, I might actually clear a bit more work today…
I switched from writing today’s blog post online to writing it offline, as indicated by the divider line. Let’s see how well it performs… (Oh, she of little faith.)
You know I agree with that! Although I’ve been bad lately and looked at social media first thing some mornings, after I write a bit in longhand.
It’s fun to switch up the routine though, and see if different things work as your process shifts.
I am so sore from the baking! Whatever’s under the floor covering is harsh.
It’s so easy to get into such bad habits, but then so difficult to get out of them again. I’ve spent most of the week away from the desk just to stop me clicking through social media and the internet in general. I’ve got a lot more work done, though, even if most of it has been planning and admin.
I hope you’re giving your feet and legs plenty of rest. My back would be in bits.