Trying Something New

New writers constantly want the magic bullet, the secret handshake, whatever you want to call it.

What they're really afraid to do is experiment. There's so many ways to write. So many different methodologies. All of them have pluses and minuses. What works for one writer may not work for another, and vice-versa.

There's an old saying BICFOK. It stands for "Butt In Chair Fingers On Keyboard."

It's that simple. And that difficult.

I'm one of those writers who likes to carve out a straight hour or two to write. Preferably in the afternoon or night. Because I am SO not a morning person.

But with a husband and a kid, that's not always realistic, either from the amount of time standpoint or the time of day standpoint. It's also not healthy sitting in one position for so long as I age.

This morning I tried a couple of different things. One, I started writing a half hour after I crawled out of bed. Two, I tried writing is short bursts, aka sprints.

Sprints have been advocated by several writers I've known over the years. I've only ever tried them with other people, and the experience wasn't the best because there's always that one person who needs to talk.

(Yeah, sometimes I was the guilty party.)

This morning though, I tried three solitary 25-minute sprints. On the plus side, I came in on my normal speed of 600 words per minute hour. (Dang! Talk about a Freudian slip! I WISH I could type 600 words per minute.) On the negative side, I had a problem getting back into the story after my breaks. Though in all fairness, I took more than the 5-minute bathroom/drink break that I was supposed to do.

The reason I'm doing this? We're looking for a house, and I need to make the most of my writing time if I'm going to maintain my business schedule in the middle of a move.

So, I'm going to try sprints again, and see if I can't refine my technique.

Anything y'all are trying new to improve your writing for 2018?