Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

Just discovered a writing pattern I didn't know I had

Thanks to the introduction of a baby into my life, getting back to any kind of a writing schedule has proven pretty interesting. I’m finally writing regularly again—which is wonderful! But I’ve discovered a part of my process I never noticed before.

When I was living in Ireland, I worked as a front desk receptionist for a business bank. The job was pretty quiet and I had a lot of time on my hands. Because I was the first person any customer would come in contact with, they didn’t allow the internet on my computer—wouldn’t look good to have the receptionist surfing the web instead of working—so there wasn’t much to occupy my time when there were no customers or phone calls.

At a job like this it turns out being a writer is really handy. I would type away in the down times, being sure to stop immediately whenever the limited demands of my job called, and ended up getting lots done. Out of a 5 hour shift, I could easily get in 2-3 hours of writing. Sometimes as much as 4 hours in a day. And because I never shirked my responsibilities, no one cared that I spent my time tapping away. In fact, it looked really good for the bank, like I was busy but would stop instantly to attend to a customer’s needs.

At any rate, a couple of things came out of the three years of keeping this pattern. One, I got very good at being interrupted when I write. This skill has proved invaluable with the baby. I can stop on a dime and start right back up where I left off if I need to.

I also got very good at writing in the times available to write. I accomplished a lot in whatever moments I had and didn’t waste time getting in the mood to write. I just sat down, opened my file and started because I was never sure how much time I’d have to work.

And finally—though I only just realized this in the last few weeks when I started writing regularly again—I can’t seem to sustain a flow of writing for much longer than 2 hours without a break. Before that bank job, when I had a bit more time on my hands, I could write for 15 hours in a day if I had the time and the story was flowing. But after 3 years of living the stop-start, 2-4 hours a day writing pattern, I got used to working in short, fast spurts.

Now, even with all the time in the world, I need to step away from my writing after 30 minutes to 2 hours and give it some breathing room. Then I can start up again and go quickly for another sprint session. Again, this is actually proving pretty handy with the baby. I don’t have all the time in the world and am often interrupted after just 30 minutes to 2 hours anyway. But give me a full day to write, and I’m probably only going to keep butt in chair for a couple of hours at a time. Then I have to go do something else for awhile.

This flies in the face of the traditional “work day” even for stay-at-home writers. But all in all, this pattern works for me. I get a lot done, so I’m not going to change things just yet. It does amazed me, though, how set that pattern became. And it only proves what creatures of habit we writers are. The job is considered a great, flexible career, and it is, but we need a schedule of some kind to be productive. Purely on accident, and thanks to a quiet day job, I’ve set myself a schedule that plays really well with kids.