A Day In The Life: My Writing Process

Since I am working on several projects at the moment, I thought I would share my writing process. People always ask me, “How do your write such consistently good stuff?”  Actually, people never ask me that.  Most people ask me,”What do you do for money?”  Which I respond, “I am a gigolo under the name Ball Zout”, and that usually shuts them up.

My writing process is normal, I suppose.  Usually when I wake up in the morning the cat is laying on me so I have to be careful not to crush him, which I never am, so I am never actually awake until I hear “meeowwwww!”  Then I am pretty much up.  I go into the kitchen and start the coffee.  This is necessary.  I like to imagine that if coffee was a person it would be Tim Tebow.  You try and go as long as you can without putting him in, but everyone is going psycho and Kyle Orton is a fruitcake, so you eventually have to put him in, but you know in the back of your mind you are unleashing a force stronger than anything this world has ever seen and will either bite you in the ass or you will win some games and lose some, but even if you do lose you could lose for 6 six years in a row and the fans would never blame Tebow, so you would be stuck with him, or you would write a novel.  All this depending on whether you were using Tim Tebow or coffee.

So I’ve got my coffee.  The cat has been following me around and biting my toes since I woke up, so I fed him while the coffee was making to put a stop to that.  He follows me to my desk and we assume our positions, me in my chair, and him on the desk next to my keyboard.  We will move in and out of these positions for the remainder of the day, sort of like moving in and out of consciousness, but with a lot less blacking out.  Or maybe not, I can’t really remember.  What dimension is this?  I could’ve sworn I had more fingers…

Now I’m at my desk, computer on.  I pull up the news first, read some crap, mostly forums, then pull up my screenplay. Okay, now It’s fucking GO TIME.  I find my place and catch myself up.  This takes a few minutes.  I find the best way to think is staring out the window.  So many more ideas come to me from the window than anywhere else in my apartment.  In fact, I can’t think of a time when the fan or dishwasher gave me a good idea.  Maybe I should exchange them for windows?  I suppose windows aren’t very good at washing dishes, so that could be counter-productive in some aspects of life.

Okay, I’ve finished thinking.  I’ve figured out where I want to take the story, and I begin writing the next scene.  I will take periodic breaks for thinking, breaking, and eating, but I normally write for 8-10 hours a day, Monday through Friday.  I like to break up my day, and I generally write at a smooth, steady pace.  Rushing creativity is not my idea of a good time.

That’s a work day in a nutshell for me.  Thanks for reading!