From Edie: A.C. Williams shows us how to write while traveling with three practical strategies to protect your writing time, stay focused, and keep your manuscript moving forward.
How to Write While Traveling: 3 Strategies to Keep Your Manuscript Moving
by A.C. Williams @ACW_Author
How are your writing projects progressing this year?
I don’t mind telling you that I’m not happy with my own. I have many friends and colleagues who tell me I expect too much from myself, and maybe that’s true. But I made a goal at the start of the year, and at the moment I’m so far behind, there isn’t much I can do to catch up. And that’s okay, obviously. We can make our plans, but the Lord directs our steps. A lot of life decided to happen for me this year, and I had to prioritize other things.
Goals, especially word count goals, are often in place to help us understand how much we can get done in a specific amount of time. Writing novels isn’t like other normal work tasks. On one day, it may be easy to crank out 2,500 words. The next day, you may struggle to get 30. Many variables affect the number of words that can travel from our brains to the digital page.
But what if you could adjust your writing habits to meet the shape of your life? What if you could set up a strategy to get words on the page that you can maintain even when your life goes unexpectedly crazier than normal?
I have no idea if this is going to work, but I am getting ready to try a bit of an experiment. I figured I might as well share my intentions here, and then I will report back on how it goes in a few months. Maybe. If it works. If it doesn’t work, we may just forget this post exists. (No, just kidding.)
For the rest of this quarter, which is primarily August and September, I have three conferences/road trips on my calendar. I want to see if I can adjust my writing habits and writing schedule to allow me to write while I am traveling. For two of the three trips, I will be the only driver; for one of them, I will be the second driver.
I have a manuscript I’ve been picking at for literal years, and it is long past time that I rewrote the thing. I believe I am finally at a place in my life where I can, and since it’s a story I want to have some fun with anyway, I figured that trying to draft it in the midst of my life’s chaos might just add to its overall tone and voice.
So, this is the plan I am following to make it more possible that I can draft this manuscript while I am traveling over the next two months.
Strategies for Writing While Traveling
First off, know the story. This is the most important part of being able to get regular word count on the page. Whether you’re trying to squeeze in 300 words or 3,000 before you hit the road in the morning, you need to go into your writing session with some idea of where to start. It’s not that discovery writing doesn’t work. I know many people who are discovery writers. However, the most successful and prolific authors I know outline their stories and follow their plans to some extent.
Secondly, make sure you have a workspace conducive to concentration. This is the part that is difficult, since sometimes I travel with others. What I have learned about myself is that I can’t write when other people are staring at me. If I’m in a room with another person, even if I have my laptop out and am clacking away on it, I can’t keep my focus there. (And nine times out of ten, they can’t stop talking to me either.) So the only way I’m going to be able to get any writing done while I’m traveling with someone is to sequester myself in an area where they aren’t. Obviously I won’t be out of contact all day, just for however long that writing session lasts.
Thirdly, set boundaries around your writing times, and stick to them. If you decide that you are going to write for one hour every morning, decide when that time is going to be, get up at that time, and sit down to write. If you can’t keep an appointment with yourself, writing a novel is going to be a huge challenge for you.
Oddly enough, those three steps sound a lot like what it looks like to get words on the page when I’m not traveling.
What makes writing more difficult when you are traveling is not having access to your normal spaces. If you’re staying in a hotel, scope out a table where you can sit and work. If you’re staying with a friend, do the same thing, and make sure you communicate with them that you need an hour in the morning of alone time to write. If you are traveling in an RV (which is what I do now), make sure that you have explained why you need to be by yourself for a little while. Be nice about it, of course, but speak up. The people in your life can’t help you if they don’t know what you need.
Those are my plans for the next two months. We will see how I do! What about you? Have you set any writing goals for this month or for the rest of the year? What are you trying to get done?
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