Monday, July 9th

The Daily Report

There's nothing like a really good night's sleep to bring into relief how few good nights' sleep one has been getting lately. I haven't been in an insomnia episode, the conditions just haven't been good for getting more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep most nights for quite a while. I was really dragging physically the last two days but I had social engagements that required leaving the house. Today I'm going to be taking it absolutely easy, at least on the physical plane.

I have some plans that I've been meaning to implement for things like more regular blogging, flash fic-ing, and so on, that I just haven't had the wherewithal to put into place. I am going to be starting them this week.

State of the Me

Doing fairly well. Slept for about twelve hours. I might end up lying back down in the afternoon, but I think as long as I keep getting good sleep at night I'll be fine.

Dreams From Last Night

Many, but they've all run together.

Plans For Today

It's day one of a MU writing cycle. I'm also going to be starting a new flash fic writing cycle, which I'll detail in a blog post.

Back in a flash!

So, sometimes in the past I've woken up and just had it in me to write five or ten flash fiction stories all at once. And sometimes I've been able to go a week or so writing one or two a day. Just like opening a tap and letting the words flow. It's a great feeling when that happens, but as much as it feels like turning on a faucet, it really isn't something I can turn on and off.

For a while I was trying to do a three day cycle, but that wasn't quite working. There wasn't enough pressure. Now, pressure is a tricky thing... a lot of times when I start talking about time constraints or benchmarks somebody will pop up to tell me that I shouldn't pressure myself. "No pressure!" The thing is that no pressure might be less damaging than too much pressure, but it doesn't get stuff done. Challenging myself to write a flash story every three days isn't quite no pressure but it's not enough pressure to keep things flowing through the lines.

So here's what I'm going to try now: three day cycle, but continuous and overlapping.

Day one: get idea. Today's idea is will-o-wisps. For the rest of the day I'm going to think about directions to take that in.

Day two: write it. Sit down and try to write out the story I'm envisioning.

Day three: finish it. Maybe it needs an ending. Maybe it needs a coat of gloss. Maybe it needs a rethinking. Maybe it just needs to be posted. Either way, this is the day I wrap it up.

That's the basic plan. Tomorrow, I'm going to be on day two of wisps and I'm going to start day one of another cycle. The day after that I'll start another one. If this pace ends up being totally unmanageable, I'll dial it back down so I've only got two eggs in the air at a time instead of three.

This gives a production target of one story a day. I say "target" because I already know there's going to be some slippage. Having a phone that I can comfortably write on (and the new Google Drive app!) will help there, but there's no such thing as 100% efficiency and life happens. So I'm going to be collecting stories for a week before I start posting them, and the posting schedule is going to be subject to change as I go.

Writing flash stories is important to me because when I'm doing it, I'm able to write more of everything else, and better. It helps me shake the cobwebs out and keep my writing muscles in shape.