Character-building Tuesday

It might seem, given that title, that I spent the day building characters. Nope. I wish I had. It would have gotten me a bit further on the book.

As it was, I really got no where.

I mentioned yesterday that I had a second set of meetings today for the Game Manufacturers Association. The meetings went very well. We got a lot of work done and, after the formal meetings, I had a bit more work to do on one aspect of what the meetings had covered. I enjoy doing that work, and I think it is very important. It’s not, however, piling words up. Shifting to that mode of thinking, discussing and listening can be tiring.

At the end of it, I wasn’t going to get any writing done. As a result, I shifted the week around. I did the errands I had slated for the weekend in the extra time on Tuesday, and I’ll have to power through Saturday and Sunday. I’m also going to have to make better use of Thursday this week than I did last, since the 26th will be Thanksgiving and I’m going to bet I don’t get that much work done on that day.

So, today was a character-building exercise for me, since character is what you get when you don’t get done the things you want to be doing. It also points to something that plagues a lot of writers and others who work from home—especially the self-employed. Folks don’t understand that your work week isn’t like anyone else’s. I don’t get weekends off, especially when I’ve not done work during the week. And the temptation to take them off is huge because all your friends get them off.

I don’t really think writers are ever off the clock. Everything we see and do becomes grist for the mill. I was out at a craft store doing an errand and saw a bunch of cool stuff in a variety of departments. Just the very existence of some of this stuff suggested story ideas. Other things looked like they would be fun to try. And they were inexpensive enough that I could have dragged a few things home and experimented.

I didn’t. I recognized them for what they are: distractions. I can’t afford that. And learning how to fold reindeer out of origami paper might be fun, and might make for some great holiday decorations, but they won’t put words down on paper. Nor, alas, will going to either of the dancing events I’ve been invited to on Friday, or the club opening on Thursday or… or… or….

None of this is news to anyone who is self-employed, of course. We have the luxury of making our own hours—and generally having to work far more than 40 of them in a week. If we didn’t love the work, it would be torture; but I truly love what I do.

And boy do I have a lot of it to do out through the rest of the week.