The husband and I have worked out a morning schedule that will hopefully allow both of us to get exercise in. I'm still getting up at the obnoxious hour of 5am, but he has resolved to be out of the house with PB by 6:30, which means that I can hold off on doing my get-ready-for-work stuff until after he is gone. Thus I now have time in the morning to go running. We gave it a try this morning and it worked fairly smoothly. I got up, pumped my boobs, went running, got back and finished putting PB's bottles and lunch together for the day, washed my pump parts, woke PB up and gave her two boobs, then changed her and sent her off with Daddy. I then had over an hour to shower and get dressed and ready for work.

The only big variable in this equation is the kid. This whole thing kinda relies on her not waking up before 6am.

***

I've been reading over the story that I finished recently--the one with 52 fucks. I'm somewhat annoyed with it, because after more than a month of tinkering and gutting and rewriting, it's still wrong. I guess I should feel good that I've come far enough as a writer that I can sense that it's not right, but I am coming to the depressing conclusion that making it right is going to take an almost criminal deconstruction and recreation. The main storyline and idea of the story is a good one--I feel confident with that. The problem is that I hang a figurative gun on the wall in the first scene, and it never gets shot. (This is an allusion to the writing advice that states "If you hang a gun on the wall in the first scene, you'd better shoot it by the end of the story.") I tried to squeeze in a reference to it being shot, but it is forced and awkward and just doesn't work. So I'm now debating whether to remove the gun altogether, which would require some big rewrite of the first 8 pages, or if I should shoot the fucking gun, which would require major rewrite of the next 22 pages. Obviously I am leaning more toward removing the gun in the first place.

This is why I am doing my best to not rush stories out the door. Three days ago when I finished the story I thought it was marvelous. But a more sobered and careful reading revealed this truly gripping flaw in the story, which would easily garner a generous heaping of rejection slips. I think I'm just going to table the story completely for a couple of weeks and get some distance from it, then see if I can come up with a fix for it when my vision is a bit clearer.

Besides, there are always other stoies to work on.

James D. Macdonald, professional SF writer and an instructor at the Viable Paradise workshop has the "2 hours a day BIC" advice for writers, where BIC means Butt In Chair. For two hours a day, you write. You don't do anything else. You type words. You don't research, or read email, or surf the web. You make two hours a day to write, even if you have to set your alarm two hours earlier in the morning (as he does) to do it.

I respect that. I really do. You have to make the time to write if you want to become a pro. But, I think that you have to evaluate your priorities in life as well. Yes, I want to sell to pro markets. Yes, I'd like to publish novels as well. But at this time I simply do not want to arrange my priorities so that a block of two hours of my day is taken up with writing. Which in turn means that I accept that at this time I am not aspiring to be a "pro." I fit writing in when I can. When I get home from work I spend time playing with my baby, feeding her, washing bottles, doing various housework, and spending time with my husband. All of those things are very important to me and I don't want to cut back on any of them. (Well, maybe the washing bottles part, but that's really only about 15 minutes.) The exercise in the morning is vital for my health so that I will continue to be around for my baby. In order to make two more consecutive hours in the day strictly for writing, I would have to set my alarm for 3am. This would give me about 4-5 hours of sleep a night, which would probably begin to affect my health after a while.

So, sure, I could "make" the time to write and be a pro, but I think for now I'd rather be a mom and a wife, who does some writing on the side. Healthier in the long run, I think.

This day: 2001