Cloistered.

Linda is visiting Todd for 3 days, so I decided I would do a heavy writing session.  I'm 75% through the first draft of the Dead Spend No Gold, and I'm hoping to push on through to the conclusion by the end of the week.  I've had a clear focus on the plot almost from the beginning.  This book is probably the closest to the original conception as anything I've ever done.

What this means is -- sitting in my room for six days straight.  Never turning on the television.  Never turning on the music.  Getting stir-crazy.  The one thing I allow myself to do is play solitaire on my old desktop computer (which pretty much solely exists for that purpose.)  I do this because my sub-conscious seems to be able to generate ideas while I'm doing it, but reading, or watching, or listening, not so much.

Out of 12 to 16  hour days, I may spend only 10 or 20% of it on actual writing.  The rest of the time I'm letting things percolate.  It does get boring, frankly.  But I have to stick with it, I have to be available for when I tease out that little bit of creativity, and then hope that I get on a roll.

So if I was following a compass, I'm wandering off the path about 90% of the time, but when I get back on the path I make progress.

But if anyone wants to know how I write so fast, the answer really is that I don't.  I just give all my time over to it.  I have to be willing to stay cloistered for days on end.  I'm so thankful that the store is doing well enough to let me do it.

I can never quite get over this sense that I'm wasting time.  Yet...there are all these words I've written by the end of the day.  Certainly, no one could accuse me of not producing.  This first draft, this raw material, has to be created so that it can turn into a book.  And this is the fun part.

It's work.

It's just that the 'working' entails so much time not working.