A few recent posts got me thinking about lunchtime writing again. It’s been a while since I took a step back and thought about how it’s working for me.
Since the last time I posted about it, the breakroom I write in has become less crowded, so I feel less antisocial since I’m not sharing a table with people I’m ignoring. That also makes it quieter and less distracting. (People who work here have very interesting things to talk about. That sometimes has its downside.)
Since on Thursdays I go to Toastmasters, I only do this four days a week, and I miss it on Thursdays. Toastmasters obviously still gives me a break from work, but it doesn’t give me the alone-with-my-stories time.
The main thing I need to change is to take an actual lunch *hour*. Or at least 45 minutes. My lunch is often only half an hour. If I have to go buy my lunch that shortens things (there’s an obvious solution there). Plus, it’s too easy, if I feel stuck or I don’t feel like working on something, to tell myself I should get back to job-work.
Let me close with two points:
1) A tip–I have to make sure that when I leave the house in the morning I have everything I need. This seems obvious, but even after doing this for years I still packed up all my stuff today before remembering to sync my iPad, and then had to unpack it all again. It was simpler when I was just scribbling first drafts in a spiral notebook. (On the other hand, if I forget one project I usually have enough things going on to just work on something different.)
2) I just want to say for probably the dozenth time on this blog how much I love my iPad. I bought it specifically so I could write at lunch more easily (than on an iPod Touch), and it’s been fantastic. Once Scrivener for iPad is out, it’ll be even better.