Write On Schedule

I learned something the other day from Darcy Pattison's website, Fiction Notes. She recommends writing one page a day, five days a week. I'm working towards that goal, but for now I've started doing what she used to do: write for fifteen minutes a day. It doesn't sound like much at all, but compared to getting nothing done, it's a lot.

I'm usually home with my four year old all day and our days stay pretty full. We have lots of museum trips, park exploring, games and activities we make up and play dates. In a few days I'll be starting a regular schedule of homeschooling for him. Needless to say, I feel too guilty to sit and write during the day. He's constantly asking me to play with him and I can't say no. Every day I think I'll write when my husband comes home, but it just never happens. My son is glued to me anyway, so trying to sneak off for a while to write almost never works.

Last Thursday I hung a calender in the playroom (where my temporary desk is until bat season is over), and decided to write just fifteen minutes a day. Every day. No matter what.

The biggest reason I wasn't writing much is because I'm determined to finish a chick-lit-type novel I started years ago, but that's not what I'm passionate about. I'm passionate about YA, and I have a few YA novel ideas that I'm dying to get to. So I spend the fifteen minutes every day writing the chick lit novel, then if/when I have any free writing time after that, I get to work on my YA stuff. It's a perfect reward system.

The first day was easy, as was the second. The third day I knew we'd be going to a clam bake and wouldn't be home until late, so I made my family wait to leave the house for the party until I had written for fifteen minutes. It's a great feeling to write that W on the little calendar square. I want to see the calendar fill up with W's and no X's (like the one I have for Sept. 1st becuase I hadn't started yet). By forcing myself to write for fifteen minutes I'm slowly moving along on rewriting. And when I stop at the fifteen minute mark, my brain keeps going on what I'll write the next day.

Do you have a system for writing? How do you reward yourself?