Routine and Discipline

Scheduling writing has been a pain lately. Remember yesterday, when I was so excited to write? By the time I drove around Kansas City, visited an intern, and wrote a major homework for my online class, I was no longer in any shape to write.

But that’s why I write the blog every morning — so at least I’ve written something. No matter how short, no matter how trivial, no matter how moody. No matter how much I don’t feel it.

Without routine, I would forget I was a writer during busy times like these. I would forget how to write and all the lessons I’ve learned along the way. I would lose my identity as a writer.

In other words, even when I don’t write, I write.

Discipline in a time of busyness

I might write irregularly over the next few days, as I am traveling to a conference in Washington DC to present a poster. This is for my day job, being a professor of human services and the internship coordinator for the department.

This summer is proving busier than I had counted on. Evidence:

Richard and I have two moulage gigs this summer, one in August and one right around the corner on June 4-5th.
I have twenty interns to supervise; next week I’m spending an overnight in Kansas City to visit two or four of them.
The garden! It’s not quite done yet; I’ll be spending next Tuesday finalizing it.
The summer class I’m taking (Management of Disaster Mental Health, which is more interesting than I thought) rolls right along like a Mack truck, and I’m working hard to keep it from rolling over me.

Writing? Writing! I almost forgot about that! I will write any chance I get — if nothing else, I’ll write in the blog at least once.

It’s all about discipline. I am a writer because I keep the discipline to write. I write at least the half-hour a day it takes to maintain this blog, and hopefully at least an hour of writing/revising a day.

I notice myself improving, and that’s a good thing.

Finding time

This has been a busy, busy semester.

For example, this is what I wrote this morning:

This course focuses on the concept, practice, and issues of case management. Students will develop skills in communicating with clients, discerning intercultural issues in practice, and using best practices in documentation. This class will prepare students for case management positions in a variety of venues including geriatric case management, psychiatric case management, and disaster case management.

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I am becoming frustrated, because I’m having trouble finding the time and the brain cells for my writing. I don’t even know what I’m going to write for NaNo in November!

I need to find time. I think I can schedule after school, except on those days I have meetings (every Thursday, every Friday, and occasional Tuesdays). You see the problem, don’t you?

I need to plot some sacred “you can’t touch this” time.

I used to do this early mornings, but I’ve managed to put work-work (you know, work-work as opposed to writing-work?) into that time because I went to sleep thinking about that course description. My semester is busy enough that I think about work at night.

I’m thinking about evenings, from 6 to 8, at the Board Game Cafe. Every weekday. Even if I can’t write on my story, I have a routine going.

Let’s try that.