I’ve been trying to keep up a steady schedule when working on the first edit of Frigid Nights but with work and life, it’s not happening like I’d like it to. I rarely have the time to work on the edit and when I do, I feel no motivation or desire to sift through my mistakes and see how awful my first draft really was compared to how awesome I imagined it to be after I wrote it.
My work and sleep schedules have been crazy lately and when you’re tired, motivation can be difficult to come by. Outside of work, I’ll be tired so I’ll spend a lot of time doing something that doesn’t require too much energy like watching my favorite YouTubers or shows. One thing I have been doing more of is reading. I’ve wanted to read more books rather than watch TV and play video games and I’m happy to say I’ve been doing more of that. It really comes down to the books. If you’re reading something you’re interested in, you’ll read faster and read more of it. If you’re bored reading novel you’re reading, move on to the next one and save yourself the pain.
I’m currently reading The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly, another book about Detective Harry Bosch. I must say, this one is flying by at a much better pace than Connelly’s first book The Black Echo. The storyline is much more interesting and the flow of the story moves much better. There is always new action and a new development where I felt in The Black Echo there were some instances where nothing really happened and the story felt a little stagnant. The Concrete Blonde is the third Harry Bosch novel and I plan to read many more of them. I have the second one in the series after Echo but my sister had it for the longest time and I happened to pick up the third one before she returned it. Connelly’s got a very unique style of writing that gives you what you need and want to know but doesn’t hype it up or drag it out like some authors do. He doesn’t write at some high academic level which would take most readers out of the story. He knows his audience and writes his novels that way. He knows who’s reading and he writes for them.
The primary downside of this lack of sleep and lack of time is I haven’t done much writing. Yeah, I’ve written a few blogs and have been trying to keep up with these as well but it’s not the same. I need to work on my stories and come up with some new ones but I haven’t actually sat down at a computer to work on anything since my last post and I doubt I’ll have time to start any new stories today. I have a mini-vacation coming up this weekend where I’ll be off work for a bit and I fully intend to hit my goal of at least starting a new story and completing a few chapters of edits for FN. If I don’t, I’ll be supremely disappointed.
I’ll be working on a new story idea tonight, still in the works of the concept and characters before any actual writing is done, but it’ll come. I plan on running with a new premise and telling stories similar to crime fiction but hopefully a little more realistic and not conflated like in TV or in bad cop novels. Luckily, since I’m reading Michael Connelly, I have a good author to take from.
Do you find it hard to keep up with writing due to your schedule? How do you manage it? If you’ve set a routine for yourself, share it below. You may help me out or another writer looking to solidify their own writing routine!
Drew Schroeder 