A writer who doesn't write

What do you call a writer that doesn't write? Frustrated? Unhappy? Bored? Lacking a voice?

Between my blogs and my fiction, I've hit a bit of a dry spell. Not so much for lack of ideas, more so for trying to figure out time to write between everything else. Even my lunch at work has morphed into student loan bills and car payments. At least some of my lunches I have spent walking. In addition to wanting to write more I also want to be more physically active.

Cell Phone Step Chart

I even did particularly well this past week with my step count. Only one day was I below 5,000 steps. At least according to my phone. Some days it is pretty close to my pedometer, other day short by about a thousand steps or so. While that margin of error is pretty big, I figure that this give me a ball park of my activity without having to write down my step count every day.

I do think about my writing while I walk. Some walks this is thoughts and stories that might be good for mommy blogging. Other times it is my characters for specific works of fiction. Or even those plot bunny muse bite of "what if that did...." types of ideas.

Thinking about things in enjoyable. And depending on the stage of a project it is helpful for me to let things peculate a bit while I ponder how to start a scene or a relationship between characters. But thinking alone for months and months isn't fun. I need to get the words down, and add them to a growing body of work. To see them take shape. To change them as the idea further develops.

Same thing with the blog. Though with blogging, I like to see what others are writing. To me blogging is social, and only updating my own blog is like talking without listening.

So I'm going to try and do some actual writing each week. It may come down to assigning a specific week day where my lunch is a writing lunch. That way I can still walk, and pay bills, and have time to enjoy various other activities.

Any other thoughts on what to call not writing? How do others get back into the swing of things?

Writing Wednesday: Nanowrimo idea

I do still want to post about writing and I'm currently in the process of figuring out the balance of what to post when. Writing sounds good on this day of the week because alliteration is fun. Not that every topic has to match, it just created a starting point.

With baby on the way I'm planning on getting in what writing time I can now and seeing how things go once she's here. To that end I've decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo / NaNo) this November. I had a glimmer of an idea a few months back which merged with an old short story idea from a few years ago.

My idea is still rough hopefully I can get it to a workable state soon. Ideally I'd like to have an outline ready to go. I'm writing science fiction this year. The basic idea of the story is a less advanced society living in the shadows/ruins of a previous society that was more technological. Right now I'm trying to figure out why the first society left and making sure the reason still leaves room for the current society.

And yes I know it's Thursday. I started this post yesterday over lunch and decided to still run with the title.

Blogfest wrap-up: I had fun at the Labor Day blogfest and am still planning on visiting everyone who stopped by here. These past two weeks have gotten away from me.

Write an hour a day

Sure, writing a draft is easy to measure the progress be it in terms of words or pages. Revising can be as well, depending on your process. But what about all those other writing steps that can't be as easily measured in words and pages?

I've been thinking about my writing progress recently with these in-between draft stages. I have more world building to do after a rough novel draft before I work on the pre-revision outline. I can count words in the notes, but it would be nice to have some daily goal to set for myself.

When word/page counts fail, enter time. I'll admit I am huge on the word count in terms of measuring my progress. It's great for writing drafts. But now with the planning the amount of material isn't as important as the ideas I'm working out. So I figure I can aim to spend about an hour a day working out various details of the novel's world and characters.

Who else does time goals for any/all writing stages? Do you all pick the same amount of time each day? Aim to write longer some days then others? Take days off during the week? I know at times with my word counts I'll like to write a bunch one day, then take the next off. Or write a shorter more intense scene the next day. It does depend on the story.

Everyone is different, there are probably many writers out there doing a time goal for drafts as well. And even different parts of the novel/story writing process can be approached differently.

A better way to type?

Have you ever asked yourself if there is better way to type then Qwerty?

For this post, I wanted to mention the keyboard layout I use: Dvorak.

I first stumbled across the different layout thanks to Forward Motion for Writers, and decided to make the switch from Qwerty back in May of 2006. The beauty of Dvorak, is that it is designed with the English language and human physiology in mind. Letters that are most often used are in the home row, the next most used are in the upper row, while the least used are in the bottom row. Also, because it's easier to move from pinky to index finger, letters are arranged with that in mind. Try drumming your fingers on the table, which is more natural, pinky to to index, or starting with your index?

What does Dvorak have to do with my writing blog? Well, aside from typing everything sans-qwerty, it's how I get my words down from keyboard into MS Word. Except for random notes, I work primarily on the computer. I type much faster than I (legibly) hand write.

I didn't notice much of difference right away, and some slow typing frustrating times. My productivity was down a little while I was relearning to type, but it was an investment in my future writing career. I have 7 novels planned currently, with more ideas hanging around waiting their turns.

Maybe not better, as that's subjective, but for me Dvorak feels more natural then Qwerty ever did. I can have a 6,000 word day now without my fingers feeling weird. On typing tests I hit around 60 WPM now, which I'm not sure how fast I was with Qwerty minute wise. I knew from various Novembers that I can hit 1k words an hour pretty easily. Once I hit that with Dvorak I knew my switch over was complete.