A Typical Day in My Writing Brain

9:30am: I'm going to get so much writing done today!

11:00am: I guess I should probably stop [reading the internet/doing these somehow urgently important dishes/"carefully planning my week"/reading a different part of the internet] and get started on that whole writing thing.

11:03am: I have no idea where this scene is supposed to go next. I'm not going to produce anything good today.

11:07am: OHMYGOD that is the best paragraph I've ever written! This scene is going in such a brilliant direction.

11:16am: Well, I wrote that one really awesome paragraph. Isn't that enough of an accomplishment for one day?

11:52am: Okay, what if he says that to her, and that sets up the thing that happens in the next chapter, and it's also sort of parallel to what happens later in the other storyline...

12:13pm: Ugh, this chapter I wrote a few months ago is going to need so much polishing. No, wait, I love it.

1:31pm: Is this the best reveal ever, or what? Is it? Is it? Probably not.

1:33pm: Whatever, I'll fix it later.

2:00pm: Wait, what if none of this makes any sense because nobody did that kind of thing in 1963?

2:48pm: Now that I'm positive the situation is period-appropriate, I think I'm not going to use it after all because something else works better.

3:35pm: How is it that I'm still researching this when I thought I'd already decided not to use it?

3:41pm: Okay, it's decided: I'll do it like this, and later I'll go back and add a part to the other storyline where they talk about the same issue.

3:44pm: I will never ever ever be finished with this novel.

3:46pm: No agent will ever consider my manuscript because it's too long. But not like it matters, because I'll never be done revising it.

3:47pm: The time I'm spending on revision is worth it because I'm creating an incredible manuscript, and it doesn't matter that it's long because every word belongs there.

3:48pm: I'm delusional. I will never be successful.

3:49pm: Okay, what if in this scene, they're talking about that other thing, and then I take out that other scene?

4:53pm: Shoot, I spent so long writing that I'm not going to have time to [read/blog/do those urgently important dishes/read the internet].

7:29pm: Oh, I know, I should make that scene take place at the office.

9:15pm: What kind of desks would the office have?

1:47am: Ohmygod have I based that whole chapter on a glaring anachronism?

1:53am: No agent will ever consider my manuscript because of how the story opens.

This is a sample typical day, but not all of my days follow this pattern. On many days, these thoughts occur in an entirely different order! Also, I have totally exaggerated how long I typically spend working in order to make myself look good in this post.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ io9 offers a very cool chart that reveals how science fiction futures changed over time: "Once we had our data, we divided it up into works set in the Near Future (0-50 years from the time the work came out), Middle Future (51-500 years from the time the work came out) and Far Future (501+ years from the time the work came out)."