Day 7: Family Things

While I didn't reach my word count target for today, I'm not actually that fussed. In the morning, my family spent time together over breakfast, and when I got home from work, we spent time together again. I've still completed a chapter, and I've gotten over 1,100 words written for the day. It's not 2,000, and I'm not caught up, but I have a plan.

This might involve not really talking to people much tomorrow. Such is life. But here goes:

Wake at eight. Immediately shower, have breakfast, and do all those sorts of things that can hinder a day.

At twenty to nine, I write for fifty minutes, roughly. My target: 800 words.

Every hour for the next three hours, I have a target of 950 words. By lunch time, I'll have over 3600 words written for the day.

At half twelve, I record the audio track for the trailer. I'm giving myself half an hour to do this. I'll probably edit out the hiss of the microphone and the sounds of breathing while I'm at it.

I'll then take a forty minute break, for lunch.

The next fifty minutes, I'll have another target of 800 words. Every hour following, until half four, I'll have a target of 950 words. By the end of that, I should have 6350 words added to my total, which should be more than enough to complete the book. I'll be trying to avoid the Internet in all of this time, but I'll probably pop in to tweet whether I've reached word count targets.

At half four, I'll blog about the day. When I'm done, I'll be leaving for dinner with friends from secondary school to celebrate us all having completed exams. I don't know when I'll be home.

I think it's a fairly good plan, and it'll see me not only catching up on Camp NaNoWriMo, it should ensure The Hounds of Hell sees its completion. This means I can start The Blood of Leap a day early, which takes the pressure off when Tuesday comes around. I'll need to do a fair bit of artwork, then, so I don't really want any delays.

Basically, with my plan tomorrow, I can win at life a bit.

Timetabling

From June onwards, I'll be on my own timetable for weekdays. This will last for the foreseeable future, and for the first time ever. I won't have college in September (I hope), and I don't currently have a full-time job in place. Those sort of things just aren't that common.

The implications of this are both positive and negative.

For a start, my travel expenses per week are driven down significantly. Rather than spend about €25 on travel to and from college per week (a massive chunk of my wages), I can work from the comfort of my own home. I also won't have to worry about paying for lunch when I run out of time to make one in the morning...because I'll be eating in all the time. That's up to €20 saved per week.

However, despite saving money, I'm not exactly in a position to do much else with my life; I'm still only working weekends, so I can't afford to travel, or to move out. I also don't get to see people as often as I'd like (and I like people, especially my friends). And I have to set my own work.

This is where my timetable comes in. Knowing there are only so many days I can work on one project before it becomes tiresome, I've devised a way to write about several different things throughout the week. A mix of poetry, script writing, novelling, flash fiction, articles, blog writing, video making and general adminstration work sees me working full-time on writing.

It also sees me putting off the insanity of being without a structure in my life.

However, it does also call for me to have to use my time as if I were working a regular job. Specifically:

- I need to earn money from writing
- I need to have holidays from writing
- I need to work with people in some way

I'm already working on the last one, and I'm technically earning something from writing (though not enough to be currently in a position of paying myself an hourly wage for the amount of work that actually went into the books I have published, thus far), but actually having holidays is difficult. I'd need to plan projects towards similar deadlines. I'd need some sort of money to actually go somewhere (and somewhere affordable... the student lifestyle continues even after the degree has been earned!).

It's not impossible, I know, but it will take some work.

I've set myself deadlines and tasks per month (books to have completed, projects to launch that currently only exist anonymously, submissions) so I'm not going completely without direction. I have a whole folder full of tasks that need to be done, books to be written, and a step-by-step guide to getting them done.

I don't want my time to go to waste. I know how easy it is to sit by and do nothing. But I also know how possible it is to accomplish a lot in a short period of time. Two years ago, I found myself in the position of needing to write about 25,000 words in five days in July (Camp NaNoWriMo anybody); finishing that early, I applied for, and was hired, for a writing position on The Phantom Zone (a site that unfortunately not been written on in over a year, when I stopped writing when it appeared no one else was regularly posting); at the same time, I began putting my website together.

It had been a busy five days, but it made the time feel worthwhile. That's what I want to get out of life. Sure, I could sit around all day and watch RoosterTeeth videos or tweet about the varying quantities of tea in my cup, but I wouldn't feel like I was actually accomplishing anything. (Don't get me wrong: when summer hits, I imagine I'll be spending a fair amount of time listening to the RoosterTeeth podcasts while doing things like cover design, or taking a break from work, but I don't want that to be the only thing I accomplish in a day.) Similarly, I won't be repeating what I did last summer: watching videos with the aim of achieving something from what they taught, only to never put it into practice.

I need to fill my day with activities, and I need to be flexible (but professional) about how I do it. Essentially, I'll be working a seven-day week, though I'll be setting my own hours for five of those. And I need to. Not just to actually get the books written that I've been wanting to write for years and months, now, but to actually feel like I'm doing something with my time.

If history has taught me anything, I grow restless during time off when I feel like I should be doing something. Here's the reality of the situation: I won't have a research paper to write, or teaching practice to prepare for, or a deadline to finish the really serious, time-consuming work of longer books and projects, all of which are usually dictated by the coming of September. September will just be the month after August, not the month I'm working to another timetable again.

Until such time that I find full-time work, I have to make it for myself.

Incidentally, while I have many, many projects to do for the next few months, I'd like to blog every day in June (and possibly July...and August...and September... getting the picture? Every day. Forever.), but I'm wondering: what would you like to read? I'm open to suggestions (though I'm hoping not to repeat the Sexy Sea Anemones post that resulted from an extremely open call for blog post ideas a few years ago!). Leave a comment below (or on whatever social media site you found this post through - if I posted the link).

Future Mind-Set

In the grand scheme of procrastination, I've begun focusing a lot more on life after the Dreaded Exams.This has meant that I think a lot about how to live my life, how to make money, when to do things, etc. This has largely taken form in two things:

1. A Timetable

Admitting to myself that the odds of full-time employment are not necessarily high in the foreseeable future, I've drawn up a timetable for myself. It's divided quite simply into: morning, mid-morning, noon, afternoon, late afternoon, evening and night, with the acceptance that in setting particular times to do particular things I was leaving out a meal per day, and all the household tasks that are necessary for living.

To this timetable, which includes my standard weekend hours at the bookshop, my cinema trip each week, New Comic Book Day's requisite to get into the City Centre every week, blogging on a daily basis (which I have found to be a worthy uptake) and responding to particular emails and duties as they come along, I have added generic tasks. These, being more relevant with particular projects than to the foreseeable future as a whole, are put down as: Non-Fiction, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Poetry and Script. It's not equal, but the timetable doesn't include anything like cover design, keeping up with social media, reading, or the making of book trailers.

I couldn't just remove an hour of work in a particular area for the sake of another task that would occur on an irregular basis and take an unforeseen amount of time, so I've opted to merely designate chunks of the day to the different media of writing.

This is then matched with the second object of focusing on the future:

2. A Daily Review

This requires that I ask myself certain questions (Is the timetable working? Did I do X, Y and Z?) that focus on achieving long-term goals. These long term goals are specified on the same sheet, so I can't just ignore them. They also help in the setting of the next day's tasks.

Setting tasks for the next day will then provide the actual list of things I need to write during the day. This could mean writing a particular novel, working on a task sheet from the New Year, writing haiku on a particular topic, or writing a flash story about a particular myth (because that's my thing.)

Why?

Because life is scary and uncertain and I've been living on a timetable for most of my life. Because I need some sort of structure, and I need to continually remind myself to do something worthwhile every day, or I'll fall into the habit of arsing around the house until it gets to the point where my parents would feel guilty about wanting to kick me out, but really needing me to stop living at home for my own good. Let's face it, if I'm not working (at all), I'm not doing anything to change that.

At least by writing (and publishing), I can work towards actually earning something. Not much, but something. A pittance is better than nothing, anyway.

Plus, I need to remind myself to write across a number of different projects, and not just focus on one. I can easily set it up that I don't exhaust myself with writing every day. My tasks will be written the night before, so I'll know how much time I have to do something. I'm not going to say "Write 5000 words of this novel...3000 words of that Non-Fiction book and... yeah, let's add twenty pages of a script." No. That's insane. That's asking for trouble.

While I have written what I believe is the equivalent of that before, in a single day, I don't think it's worth attempting too often. It's exhausting, and I plan on this being suitable for a long-term arrangement, if need be. That means making sure I don't pass out from tiredness after a week of doing it, and keeping my work varied and interesting. Otherwise, I won't actually enjoy it.

I've set it up so that I should enjoy it, though. I should also find some degree of success (i.e. to the degree I've set with my goals) from it, if I keep it up. I don't see it as a bad thing to have a back-up in place in case I really am virtually unemployed. It's not just a fail-safe, but an option to live according to certain standards.

Plus, given the amount of time I'll need to spend at home to do all of this work, I'm less likely to spend money on lunches out (alone...), just because I happen to be out. I'm less likely to spend money I don't really have, because I won't be able to, easily. That is a fail-safe.

I think I can manage this lifestyle. I think having an idea of what to do if there's "nothing to be done" is going to help when the exams finish. It'll be an emotional enough time without having to add despair to the list of emotions I'm experiencing.

So... this is it. Coming to the end of those student days. Coming to the end of when they're fun, too. I have one more week off before exams, and a lot of it will be spent studying. Fun, right? At least it shouldn't be so bad afterwards. In fact, I think things will actually work out well. I'm not dreading June and what it stands for anymore. Funny, that.

A Writing Schedule

College is coming to an end. Once exams are over, unless I find myself a full-time job, there'll be no more timetable controlling my life. Weird, right? No more lectures, no more designated lunch times, no more designated breaks in the year that I grew so accustomed to, that became part of my annual cycle.

Today, I was looking through different publications and writing competitions, and a thought occurred to me: a whole year could be planned out to respond to every single call for submissions, every opportunity to enter a competition, every poetry night and book signing and reading, weekly meet-ups with other writers...

The list could go on.

Realistically speaking, if I'm not employed the moment I leave college (and that's not speaking realistically), I could set up my own writing schedule, to follow the written word through the week.

An evening a week could go to talking to other writers online (Google has made that very easy to do; we don't even have to leave the comfort of our own homes). This evening, maybe two or three hours, could be used to talk about stories and books and poems in the works. It would, in essence, be a Feedback Forum, like in college, and the easiest thing in the world to do.

Saturday night seems to be poetry night. At least, so far it has been. Let's say I find something every week. That's another evening gone to writing, to performance poetry. That's an evening well spent, in my mind.

Book signings and readings are less frequent, but it's possible to keep track of them. Twitter helps with that, and Google, and simply looking up bookshops online. Many list the upcoming events for the month ahead. Or visit author websites and see if/when they're on tour, and if it's possible to make an event. The Dublin Writers Festival is coming again soon. That's just one season of events that hits during the summer months.

Realistically, we're looking at three evenings/afternoons taken up with these events, per week. What about the mornings?

Once a week, I could search websites and Twitter for calls for submissions, for competitions. Make up a list, cross out anything that's not suitable or that doesn't interest me. See what's left. A couple of hours per day, respond to these items. Simple, right? In theory.

Say I have four more hours to write, without really pushing myself. Two hours for Fiction, two for Non-Fiction. I always have something to write.

Still a couple of hours left. More if I don't have an event that evening. Write a blog post. Record a video. Track sales figures. Contact authors. There's always some small job that needs doing, right? Graphs to make, tweets to send.

But that's a good point: what do I do about social media while doing all of these things? Silence? Auto-tweeting is an option. It's not ideal. It can be very annoying, especially if it's the same things being posted all the time, with no interjections from the tweeter. Worse still if it's just links. That always annoys me. But I could tweet interesting quotations. And short poems. Imagine spending an hour a day writing short poems and haiku for tweeting throughout the rest of the day. Maybe even writing enough for the week. It doesn't have to be automated, either, if I'm home and on the laptop.

I have become convinced, in writing this, that it's entirely possible. Is it a good idea?

I would say yes. Not only would it mean writing a lot every day, it would mean having some structure in my day. I wouldn't just be sitting at home doing nothing, especially not if I gave myself tasks to do every day. It means that when I enter full-time employment, it won't be a culture shock to have to do work between the hours of 9 and 5, and likely beyond.

I've even gotten the ball rolling on the publications. I have a list in a group on Facebook that I'm updating at the moment, making it longer and helpful to more people than just the poets.

So... I think I'm setting myself up for a life of writing. Once the Dreaded Exams are out of the way, I won't have much left to fear. I'll actually be in a position to decide what I want to do with my time, whether or not I find employment (aside from the bookshop). Suddenly, life doesn't look so terrifying.

Seven-Week Notice

In terms of employment, when either party decides to terminate a contract two weeks' notice must be given. Then, the employee becomes a former-employee, often unemployed, and has to adjust to a new lifestyle.

In terms of college, it tends to sneak up on you that the agreed-upon length of your course has almost expired. Little over seven weeks remain before I'm finished, including the twenty-two day hell that is Exam Season. Where did the last four years of my life go? Or how about the fourteen years before that, accumulating Primary and Secondary school?

Seriously. I don't remember ever being in a situation of having no idea what I'll be doing in the coming September. Even before I started in college, I knew I was going to a college. I didn't know which one, but I had a semblance of an idea based on my CAO application. Newsflash: there's no CAO for The Rest of Your Life.

So, seven weeks. Then I'm a former-student. I suppose that equates to being a graduate, but even that doesn't mean employed. It certainly doesn't mean that I know what I'll be doing in September.

Don't get me wrong, I have plans, but these revolve largely around books I want to write and publish and great big projects that could take a year to complete, involving tons of work and research, if they ever get off the ground. And that's the problem, the "if", because what if something happens that gets in the way, as life is want to do? Then any plans I have for September fall through quite quickly. Scares the bejebus out of me.

So much rests of certain things going right, like passing the exams first-time around, getting myself motivated in early June to get work started, and finding the support at home and from friends and online (my Home in the Ether) to actually pull off the gradiose plans that have been running about in this head of mine for way longer than I can recall. I have known, for a long time, that I wanted to go through with certain projects, but I have had no idea when I would ever find the time to actually get things done. Especially with college, with my interests in Drama, my essays, my Research Paper, exams (the epitome of Dread) and the various social aspects of life that, apart from being enjoyable, are necessary for my sanity, I haven't had much chance to actually create a sustainable pace for working at home. Writing a book suddenly takes a backseat when there's a few thousand euro hanging over your head, and hell on the horizon.

Somehow, seven weeks doesn't seem like enough time to actually prepare myself mentally and emotionally for the transition into the unknown, into now knowing what I will be doing, not only in the future, but on each day as it comes. I've been on scheduled timetables for most of my life, and even my brief stint of unemployment back in 2010 was cushioned by my continued structure in college.

Now? Now I'm leaving that main provider of structure, which is also where I talk to most of my friends, without any guarantee of when I will enter full-time employment, what form that employment will take, or how I'm going to adjust to having an extended break like this.

Part of it is exciting, of course, but there's still the worry that eventually I have to do something to make a significant change in my life that will provide the sort of financial support society demands. It's not that I don't want to, but that I don't know how or what. I could end up teaching, which wouldn't be a bad thing, but I'd like to try my hand at something else and gain some life experience before going right into teaching, even just to get one more year on the students. I suppose that's part in fear that I might not find respect in a school if I'm barely four years older than the sixth years. I think that's a legitimate concern, especially since it's very unlikely I'll be taller than every male student in schools (kids these days...).

I'm not looking to go party-mad when I leave college. That's not what I mean by life experience. I plan on being quite reasonable with my time, following my dreams while I still feel I deserve them. I don't want to settle down into a teaching position with regrets, feeling like I'm only doing it because I want a job. It's more than just a job. There's a whole lifestyle around teaching, and entering that lifestyle isn't something I feel ready to do right now. Maybe that will change over the next few months. Maybe half-way through June I'll realise that I am ready. It's possible that right now, I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed by the idea that hey - I have to be a grown-up now!

And I have seven weeks to come to terms with that before it starts becoming a reality. the words, "I can't even", come to mind.

It's Official

The exam time tables in college have gone up. You know what that means, folks? It's officially Study Season! Making a study timetable counts as study, right? Like how gathering notes and buying stationary counts as study?

Seriously, though, I've made myself a study timetable. It's not too tasking. I'm actually planning on using the study weeks we get in college. I've broken it down so I'm studying subjects in order (because of a massive 4-day gap at the end before my final exam...which is Poetry(!)...so I don't need to study that one first in case of exhaustion.) However, I'm not going to study an entire subject in one sitting, or before I move on to the next subject. I'm going to study questions.

Up until the day before an exam, I'll be studying new material. However, the night before (and morning of) an exam, I'll be breaking information down in revision. Admittedly it's all revision of what we were supposed to have been taught in class, but for a lot of the material it's so complex you need to re-do a lot of the work, just to make sure you know it properly. But anyway, I'll be sure to have covered all of the material at least a day before the revision day.

It's tempting to say that because I have Wednesdays off exams, I can go to the comic book shop to get new comics... I'll see... I think what will probably happen is, if I'm going to the college on that day to study, I'll head to the comic book shop for it's opening, then head to college, because that won't cause me to lose a day of study if I were to just go into the city center and head back home. (Does it seem like I'm trying to justify it to myself? I think it sounds like I'm trying to justify it to myself.)

Anyway, ten exams overall, which isn't too bad. It's less than previous years. Still more than the Leaving Certificate, for some bizarre reason, but that's just how things work when you don't have exams at the end of each semester. Overall, though, I think it's been ridiculous. Yes, we have a lot of modules, but when you have teaching placement and at least ten exams per year, as well as essays and other such work that gets handed in weekly, it does seem like they want students to be under stress.

(So yeah... comic books.)

The simple fact of the matter is that over three weeks, I'll have ten exams, six week-days off for study, and three weekends (a total of 22 days, really...let's just say three weeks so it's less daunting.) They will be some of the most stressful weeks of our lives, for the sake of nineteen hours of writing, due to the fact that we're not only required to memorize a ton of material (a lot of it from before Christmas) but also to engage with it meaningfully and intelligently and respond to a specific type of question that will limit what we can say, but cannot prepare for directly (aside from just learning everything.) By the end of the exams, I don't imagine I'll remember much about my first exam (Bioethics... whoop whoop!) which kind of escapes the point of testing whether or not I know it.

This isn't a critique of my college. This is a critique against exams in general. The aim to test how much a student knows based on one sitting, one written exam, is ridiculous, and yet it's still the most widely used form of assessment in educational systems around the world.

Exam season is here, ladies and gentlemen, and with it will come an obscene amount of caffeine, hair-pulling, sleepless nights and (probably) swearing. College is less fun sometimes...