Butt-in-chair is defined simply as the time spent putting the words on paper. You spend all waking hours--and some sleeping ones--writing, but to paraphrase Laurence Block, the only time that counts is churning out the daily word count. And this is where I have problems with consistency. And so far every time I have tried to discipline myself into doing better, I flub it.
What I have figured out about myself is I do better with improving myself with something I can track. I'm more consistent with housework with a checklist, projects get finished with GTD, I keep track of money when I feel I'm going to be graded. Keeping word count tallies is good, but doesn't help me with the consistency. I usually meet the goal by having a mad dash of writing for an assignment. So after deciding I needed a better system of accountability, I went looking in my library.
Most advice books leave daily work at the you-need-to-do-it-but-everyone-is-different stage. If you're lucky, the author will cover what works for them. unluckily, most are full-time writers who can sit at the computer for a couple of hours until the word count is met. I'm not in that position and may never be. Writing has to exist in my life as a second full-time job.
What I found among the books I haven't read yet was Jerry Cleaver's Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course. "Time Management was listed in the blurbs, so I decided to read what he says about it. Cleaver sets up his book as a writing course, complete with exercises at the end of every chapter. His writing style is this-is-the-problem-here's-the-solution. No feel-good waffling and right now I want a method to apply. If it doesn't work that will be the time to modify the method.
In this chapter the techniques are tailored to helping you overcome the particular difficulties you face in making writing a part of your daily life. If you're serious about writing, you can (and should) start now. If you do, when your life opens up (if it ever does), you'll be ready and able. But what if it never opens? Well, you don't need to wait around for such an opportunity. This system makes it possible for you to do it now. (161 - 162)
It doesn't take much to hook me, I'm afraid. He calls this system the 5-minute method. Cleaver also created the Writer's Loft and the "Write Your Novel Now" Internet course. So I believe him when he says this method has been the most successful.
First step is to take five minutes out every day for writing. Now you don't start a timer and put the pen on the paper. These five minutes are to put yourself in a meditative state. You can tap into your creativeness much easier when you're relaxed instead of hearing the must-write screaming in your head. I'm having to train myself out of this screaming because it's counter-productive. I do more and better writing back when I just wrote and didn't spend all my time telling myself I had to write.
I once sat down to try meditating for 5 minutes and nearly jumped out of my skin because, in my world, you were never supposed to be doing nothing, and if you caught yourself doing nothing, you damned well better not be enjoying it. (This is all very Western. The Eastern cultures have a tradition of meditation, of letting go of the mind, or letting it settle down, to achieve an inner state of emptiness and relaxation that brings on insight, and enlightenment. Now, I'm not talking about religion or spirituality, but simple a way to reach a deeper level of your mind.) So, if the Puritan is in you, it usually helps to be aware of it and consciously tell yourself it's OK to just sit. (164)
Huge problem for me too, made worse by not having time to do butt-in-chair nor the desire to do butt-in-chair. It has been worse than my don't-wanna-exercise apathy. Cleaver's first counter to that is to spend the five minutes doing nothing but meditation. "This whole relaxing, letting go, do nothing approach should assure that you will do your five minutes, that you will put in your time, because you can never use the excuse that you're not up to doing it, that you don't feel you can accomplish anything, that you're not in the mood, or that you can't handle it today, etc., since the only thing you have to accomplish when you don't feel up to it is to do nothing, and you can't claim you're incapable of doing nothing, can you? (164-165)" You commit to doing this for "thirty days straight before you evaluate or reconsider it or debate with yourself about the value of it. (165)"
"The CARDINAL SIN in all this is skipping the 5 minutes a day (181)." But it does happen. So far I have missed one. "BUT if due to forces beyond your control, you do miss your 5 minutes, never, never,never do extra to catch up (181)." It only feeds into the feeling-guilty cycle if you do.
I suppose what comes next sounds like I'm disobeying the don't-talk-about rule right now, but I have that accountability problem. I have to commit in public to do what's best for me.
I started following the 5-minute-method December 3rd. I created a Joe's Goal for it, so I can track the chain of doing the five minutes until it reaches thirty days. This is my public commitment to following this method.
The 5-minute-method isn't the only thing to be committed to. I've been trying to fit writing time with dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays and now that classes are over, the rest of the week has opened up. But I haven't found a spot (or an outlet) where I can pull out my laptop and work while eating. Plus always getting the feeling that I should vamoose after paying the check. Tonight after I eat, I'm going to have to squash hating myself for giving airs of pretension, find something on the menu that's sugar-free and decaffeinated, ask if there is an outlet, and write in Starbucks. The coffeehouse scene is about as me as the bar scene is me, which is in the shocked-and-dismayed-to-find-you-here category. So I'm sucking it in my own fashion for my writing. At least, I can honestly say that TV is not a big time suck for me. The Internet however....
Well, time to do my five minutes.
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