From the 37signals post Workaholics fixate on inconsequential details:

Good advice for anyone who wants to be more efficient: When you’re sweating for hours over a tiny detail, stop and ask yourself, “Is this really worth the amount of time I’m spending on it?” If not, declare “good enough” and move on.

The perfectionist in me initially cried out, “No! You can’t just skim over the details like that!” But he’s right. It’s not a call for mediocrity. It’s a reality check.

I’ve been thinking about this in regard to my playwriting, for example. Say I write a play. I could revise it ad infinitum, and ostensibly it should get better over time, yes. (Though too much tinkering can be a hazard.) But is it worth it to keep revising? Some revision, yes. But there’s a point at which it no longer becomes worth the time I’m putting into it, and then it’s best to move on and write something new. You learn not only from polishing your current bit of work, but also from starting the next one. And the next one. And the next one.

I haven’t done a very good job of keeping up with this blog lately, have I. :) As it happens, I got a little, um, distracted, but I’m happy to report that the distraction has left as abruptly as it came, and life is now back to normal again.

It isn’t just blogging that I’ve been slacking off on these past two weeks — it’s pretty much everything. So I’ve written next to nothing, hardly even been myself. I’ve got to figure out how to prevent this in the future…

Anyway, today I decided that I need to consolidate my writing projects, because there are too many of them — twelve or so plays, seven or eight novels, a handful of stories that want to be novellas, etc. — and without focusing on one at a time, I’ll never get anywhere. So, I’ve decided to give myself a few blanket categories to work within, and inside each category I’ll only work on one thing at a time. Here are the categories (for now):

1. Short fiction. This’ll be short stories, basically. I thought about taking one of the stories I’ve started and finishing it, but I feel like I want to start afresh — particularly because most of my stories to date have been fantasy of one sort or another, and I’d like to write something realistic. And religious.

2. Long fiction. I’ll try to alternate projects between fantasy and realistic, but that may or may not work. Anyway, the novel I’ll be working on for the time being is Rupert’s Umbrella Adventures. (It’s YA fantasy.)

3. Short play. This is my New Play Project category. :) My first project is to finish revising Alchemy so I can get it out for more feedback and see if I’ve fixed the problems that cropped up in the current draft. Then I’ll start writing a play to submit to the next NPP show, “Long Ago and Far Away.” (I have till June 3, and I want to submit three or four different plays, but so far all of my ideas have been for the other sets this year. Grr.)

4. Long play. I started writing a play tentatively called The Color of Love for Script Frenzy at the beginning of the month, but it pretty much went nowhere. (I have two or three pages of dialogue and that’s it.) The milieu of the play — a BYU student ward — is one I know quite well, and it should be a fun play to write. (And no, it won’t be like Singles Ward. If I’m lucky I might even be able to redeem the genre. :P)

5. Nonfiction. This’ll be my book/essay category. For now, the book I think I want to write is one on how to write a grammar text, particularly for dead languages. In other words, how do you teach a language through a book, without being boring and monotonous? So I’ll be researching pedagogical methods of language instruction, particularly focused on doing it through a book and not through a class or audio or anything else. But I’m free to change the focus if my research shows that my current idea is too restrictive or something. :)

6. Music. The oddball category, I’ll admit. It’s pretty much here purely to get me writing music more often. I’m going to start out by trying to write an arrangement of “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go” for the violin and piano.

Anyway, I’m not entirely sure that dividing things up this way will work, but it seems to be the way my brain organizes them, so we’ll see. I’m also going to set goals for these projects, both long-term and weekly, so that I don’t let lots of time slip by without getting anything done.

I reserve the right to change any and all of this. :P

I’ve started using Google Docs in earnest again. Before, I hadn’t really used the folders at all, and I’d left everything on the “inbox” page, which made it rather cluttered. But today I organized my folders and put everything in its proper place, then cleaned up the inbox page (dashboard? I don’t know what it’s called) so only the stuff I’m working on shows up. And it feels good. I’m going to start using Google Docs more in my writing process, storing everything there.

One of the things that’s kept me from using Google Docs for my writing, though, is that the default document look — über-wide (well, fitting your browser width) and no white space around the edges — doesn’t jive well with me. It’s tolerable, but not conducive to work.

Luckily I can change it: by clicking on Edit->Edit HTML, I can add a <div> wrapper that looks like this:


<div style="width: 600px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 15px 30px; border-left: solid 1px #eee; border-right: solid 1px #eee; font-family: Arial">
blah blah blah
</div>


(”width” sets the width, obviously; “margin: 0px auto” centers the whole document on the screen; “padding: 15px 30px” gives it some breathing room; the borders act as the edges of the document; and I prefer Arial to Verdana for editing text.)

Anyway, the whole experience feels good (especially with the new Google Docs look for documents), enough of an improvement that I’m actually motivated to use it. Already I can tell that it’s going to become a mainstay of my life as a writer. This is good.

Now if only I could make my <div> hack the default… (And I want styles, so playwriting will be easier. Without styles it’s a heck of a lot of formatting.)

As I mentioned on Top of the Mountains a few minutes ago, I’m going to try to simplify my life. I’ve got too much going on, and it’s crazy. I’ve been addicted to busyness.

And it’s hurting me as a writer and as an artist.

You see, I spend so much time on these minor projects that I rarely have time (or energy) to hone my craft. They’re good projects, and I do learn from them, but I could learn more from my own work.

So, from now on I’m going to stop making so many commitments. I want most of my projects to be self-assigned, because I can rearrange those priorities as needed — if I need extra time to write, I’ll have it; if I need time to read, I’ll have it. Right now I’m lucky if I have time for much of anything beyond my obligations. Sure, sometimes I just ignore those obligations and do my thing — because I’ll go insane if I don’t — but then I have to go into crisis mode to make up for lost time. It’s madness.

Anyway, I’ve scaled back on my commitments (and I’m going to see if there’s anything else I can pull out of), and it’s already reaping some dividends. This is a good move, I think.

Changing topics slightly, I went to a couple sessions of the AML conference this afternoon and came out with a strong desire to write short stories. I’m not sure why. :) But the “why” doesn’t really matter; what matters is actually writing. I used to write daily, back in August, but it’s been pretty hit-and-miss since then. Not good.