Finding my space

I have a desk I sit at while I write, but sometimes, I’m just so swamped with the “I don’t wannas” or the “I don’t feel it” that I just can’t seem to keep my butt in the chair to write. Yeah, people tell me to force myself to sit there, and power through it but I’ve found that just doesn’t work for me. I stare at the screen, knowing that I want to write, but i just can’t seem to focus to do it.

I’ve discovered a little secret about myself, which has fantastically improved my writing efficiency ten fold. Ready for my secret?

Avoid the routine.

Some people need the routine to write, setting aside from X time to Z time to write, with a ten minute break half past Y time. It doesn’t work for me. I need to vary it up. For that reason, I’ve varied up where I write, and how I write.

(Yes, that is a Han Solo in carbonite desk, by the way. *geek squee*)

I have a monster laptop that I usually use to play video games. I also have a 8.9″ netbook I use for notetaking at school. I have a desk area set up in my room where I spend a lot of my time writing. That’s where my monster laptop is.

I have problems writing everyday when I sit at my desk in my room, even though that’s what I’m sitting there for. Some days, I just can’t concentrate. When that happens, I move. I’ll take my laptop, and go lay on my bed with my big fluffy pillow under my chest to keep me up. Or I’ll step away from the computer altogether and curl up somewhere comfortable with a pencil and paper. And yes, I use pencil, because you wouldn’t believe how much I erase and rewrite when I write. Let’s not even go into how many times I write the wrong letter when I know perfectly well, it’s this OTHER letter.

I even sometimes need to leave the house, venture out into the world. More often than not, it’s mostly because I need that human contact. It’s not necessarily that I need to commune with other humans, but more that I need to be around them. I’ll still bring my headphones, jam them in my ear, and ignore the world passing me by. But there are people around me, and that makes it alright.

I find doing the same thing in the rest of my life helps as well. Sometimes, you get in these funks and you can’t even figure out why. I was in one for most of last month, which was why I missed over half my writing goals and barely got anything done.

So, the next time you get stuck on your story, think about changing something in your routine. Find a different way to let it out, or do what I do and change locations. Go have a coffee at your local coffee shop. Sit in your local bookstore. Whatever. Just do it.

What’s your favorite way of breaking the mundane, writing or otherwise?