Rough Drafting It

I'm doing things a little in reverse again tonight. Doing so somehow ends up being a lot more productive, which certainly goes against some financial advice I once read: "Focus on your long term goals then work with what's left over [which includes bills and leisure]." I think the rationale behind is that people make do with what they have and adjust to their situation, so that's what they'll do with their finances.

Time management, though, I think works a little different. Depending on the situation, addressing the small things first then moving onto the bigger projects can work better. Then there's situations like at my work, where flipping back and forth between big and small projects can provide a nice balance. The small projects provide a sense of accomplishment while the big ones break up the repetition (at least, I like to think so).

But now that I've got a bunch of chores done and have, ideally, two hours until I hit the sack, I plan on writing pretty badly. Yes, I mean it, I'll write some crapping and be BSing my novel as bad as a college student writing a term paper the night before it's done. As much as I hate to do it, it has to be done.

Oddly enough, the situation kind of excites me. It makes me feel kind of like a professional writer, even if I haven't published anything in a long long time. . .and not in any publication worth its weight in copper.

In the end, simply put, what separates the successful, professional writer from the amateur who doesn't get anywhere is that successful one will force themselves to sit down and slug out a certain volume of work or work for a certain amount of time because it needs to get done.

The amateur on the other hand, will generally just work whenever they feel inspired or not force themselves to work it. Sure, there's always exceptions, but that's someone with more talent than any one person should have. Most people, even most successful writers don't have that kind of talent. They, like me, will write crap then make it nice, pretty, worthwhile and good to read through numerous rewrites that feel like they take forever to do.

Writing isn't so much so much in the writing, it's in the rewriting and revising. I don't know who said that, but it's a wise saying.

At least, I like to tell myself all the above. Maybe when I become successful, I'll say something else.