In which Kris tries to build a new writing space

Yeah, I suck at keeping this blog regular. Bite me. I’m just downsizing posts until something interesting pops up, since apparently all my amazing ideas disappear the moment I sit at a computer. Coincidentally enough, that leads into the topic of the day.

It’s easy for me to come up with cool ideas for my stories… I get them all the time. Sometimes they’ll be simple places to use, characters I might like to include, scenes that could be fun to write, or whole plot ideas that show up out of nowhere and require some thought to include properly. I get these ideas just about everywhere… sometimes at work, in transit while on trains, or just walking to places. Actually, walking is the best time for brainstorming – I have twenty minutes to walk to get to somewhere and I have music in my earphones blocking out the world, so my mind starts to wander. I’m usually quite excited to come up with all these and can’t wait until I get home to write them all down.

Sadly, it doesn’t usually get to that point. Sometimes I jot the ideas down, or other times the ideas are interesting enough for me to recall when they’re needed, but usually the result is the same – I get home, and all inspiration and ideas wither away the moment I get behind the computer.

I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps it’s merely a mindset thing… once I’m at home and not moving anymore, my mind just automatically goes into relaxation mode and stops trying to do anything useful or productive. Part of that is the presence of so many distractions, but even that’s not the full reason – there are plenty of times when I otherwise want to write and kill off anything drawing my focus away from it, but I’ll still just end up staring at a black document for a while. It’s incredibly irritating.

Unfortunately, I’m at a point in my life where things around me are stable and solid for a while… but in contrast, I’m really not. I don’t work very much, but I’m unsuccessful in all my job hunts to fill the hours (and I’ve been trying on and off for years now). I’ve completed the study I want to complete, but ended up doing a pretty poor attempt as an editor so I’ve run out of contracts and can’t seem to find any more right now. My health is about as adequate as it’s ever going to get, yet I keep getting sick and go through repeated stretches of time where my already crippling sleep problems get even worse. Seriously, I haven’t had a good night’s sleep by my standards (which isn’t very good to most people) in about a week now, and my exhaustion is mounting. I’ve even had sleep paralysis in the morning twice now, because I’m so restless my body can’t tell if I’m awake or asleep and gets stuck halfway.

Yeeesh, that sounds depressing in hindsight. I’ll just go out here and say that despite all that, I’m doing alright. I feel okay, I’m staying positive, and I’m managing as best I can. But anyway.

Point of this rant is that with so little actual productive activity in my life, I spend a lot of time doing other pursuits that really aren’t going to get me far. Sure, I can say that my reading books is expanding my repertoire for my writing and editing skills, but there’s only so many novels I can chew through before that excuse wears thin. And there’s no excuse for all the video games I play, but hey, that’s yet another form of escapism and outlet of creativity that I capitalise on. All this means that I should be writing more – a day where I get no writing done and don’t have a rare shift at my existing job feels like a wasted day. Ergo, my problem… if the inspiration and ideas go kaput the moment I reach my writing instruments, then clearly something needs to change.

The last few days have been experiments in such change. For a start, I’m jotting down as many notes as I can on notepads and things that I can scribble on really quickly. Problems with handwriting make that process slower than I’d like, but it’s usually a good stepping stone to writing – transcribing things usually has me expanding on them as I go, which in turn sees me continuing the scene I’d noted almost without any conscious effort. If a notepad isn’t handy or is otherwise difficult to manage, like when I’m walking, I substitute my phone’s notepad instead. I guess those smart phones are good for something, huh?

Then there’s the location change. My laptop is almost always set up on my desk in my room, and this room is (again) where all my relaxation and time wasting goes on. The atmosphere probably isn’t as conducive as I would like to writing, so I’ve been trying out taking the laptop elsewhere in the house – sitting on the couch in the living room or at the dining room table for example – and writing there. That also seems to be working, but it doesn’t quite do the trick.

Therefore, the most important step: I kill the internet. Seriously, I love my internet time, but it’s just so easy to find a distraction if your focus wanders for even a minute. When I move to a writing spot, I’m there to write, and I limit myself as such. The only things open are iTunes and my word processor… and even that sees me spending a little too much time trying to get a soundtrack in order, but at the end of the day I’m still getting to work and churning words out. Even if I lose my focus, the lack of anything else to go to quickly pulls me back in.

So far, it seems to be working. I’m writing a little more these days, and while I still haven’t quite reached my best like I did during the final days of writing Star City Scramble, I’m definitely seeing improvements. Perhaps not in the quality of my writing – the last few efforts have seen me struggling to be happy with the end result, not to mention continual negative feedback – but that will hopefully come once the quantity does. We’ll see.

Alright, that’s enough rambling for now. I think I might rant about target audiences sometime soon, assuming I keep this thing going.

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