the snowflake project

This is how I feel. I’ve been working on my novel for a good long time. Over half a year. And I am just now at the point where I can say “I’ve almost started.”

Most of that is on me. I haven’t given the project the amount of time it deserves. But I can place at least SOME of the blame squarely on the Snowflake Method. It’s never taken me this long to get into the actual writing of a project – and I’ve put in many hours of work already.

However – my record for the span of time I’ve focused on one project has been blown out of the sky by this one. As I predicted, The Snowflake Method has kept me stuck to it. So, yeah, it might be taking a long time – but at least it’s getting done, and it will get finished. And if you know me personally, you know that’s a big freaking deal. I’m not great at finishing writing projects, especially when working alone.

I am exhausted. Totally and completely exhausted. I wish I could say I’m tired because of all the long hours I’ve been putting into work on my novel – but that would be the worst kind of lie. In fact, what little time I’ve been able to put towards blogging and the novel (which now has a tentative title – more on that later) has been an archipelago of serene calm and escape from a churning sea of stress and responsibility.

Life sometimes hits us with a big glut of crap to deal with. This is usually an ongoing thing – a steady stream of stuff we have to do or worry about or manage. Interpersonal relationships are a big one, particularly for those of us with spouses or children.

Owning property is whole other weather system just itching to smash into the already brewing storm of life. Emma and I bought a townhouse condo type thingy in October, and we’ve been slowly renovating it and decorating it. Home Depot, God bless’em, are becoming an ill-desired part of my regular routine. Like, say, lancing a boil on my butt. It has to happen, the result is good (love hanging out on the rooftop patio we’re outfitting) but it’s extremely unpleasant.

These things are ongoing. There’s nothing I can do that will ever take away my responsibilities associated with being a husband or owning a home (unless I divorced my wife and became homeless). But then, on top of that we have these crises that pop up and make everything so much WORSE.

Right now my cat (one of them) is sick. He’s been to the vet’s 3 times, had at least 2 diagnoses, and now we’re waiting for blood work to come back so they can give him some drugs that won’t destroy his kidneys or liver. I don’t even want to think about how much the total cost has been so far. But it’s not the money that gets to me – it’s the worrying about a little person that I really care about. It’s scary and it sucks and it’s supremely tiring and I don’t want to do it anymore.

BUT, it’s making me understand emotions and behaviors that otherwise I’d have no context to process. And ultimately, though the cost is high, these things all make me a better writer.

If I was writing a book about a father and his sick child, I might talk to people who’ve had sick kids, or I might rent Lorenzo’s Oil. But none of those compares to experience the real feelings myself. (And I know a cat is not exactly a human child, but I love the little guy a lot.)

I’m a firm believer that even though bad things happen, SOME shred of good can be extracted from the wreckage if you have the will to try. Even if it’s just: now I know how to write about that.

A few weeks ago I was poking around some message boards on Goodreads (and if you’re not on Goodreads yet, you really should be – anyone who has any interest in this blog, as a writer or a reader of books, should be on Goodreads), when the subject came up: How much time to spend reading each week?

Thinking about it – I decided that I didn’t spend enough time reading (usually just an hour before dozing off at night, if I managed to keep my eyes open that long). That line of thinking led naturally to the thought that if I don’t spend enough time reading, I certainly don’t spend enough time writing. The first thing I did (and in 99% of cases this should be the first thing YOU do) is write down all the TV shows I follow. Even ones that aren’t currently airing, but I know are coming back for another season some time in the future. It was a much longer list than I’d expected.

Then I slashed a few of the shows I didn’t really care about from the list. Grey’s Anatomy didn’t make the cut. Neither did Mad Love, which started off funny, but is now maddeningly boring. Happy Endings is good though – check it out if you haven’t already. Long story short, I cut my projected TV consumption to about 3 hours/week if you average it out over the course of a year (based on number of shows, episode length, number of episodes in a season, etc.). I think that’s a reasonable amount of TV.

Then I wondered about how much time I spent doing other crap and how much of that crap was really useful. So I found Eternity Time Log, a very useful iOS app. The paid version is a little pricey, but worth it because there is no limit to the number of activities you can add. You can even nest activities within each other – for example TV and video games would be in an “entertainment” category. I don’t use that feature because I like to be able to see all the activities at once when I look at the pie chart that results from my reporting. That’s the only flaw – if you nest activities, you either see the chart of the categories and their stats, or see the contents of only one particular category.

I’ve been using the app for almost 3 weeks now, and it’s really helped me live more intentionally. For example, on Saturday, I woke up around 8:30, and instead of lounging in bed (for which no activity is set up in my app) I got up and started working on my snowflake. I don’t hum and haw about what to do anymore. I’m never bored because I know that time I spend being bored will royally screw up my pie chart.

So if you have trouble figuring out why it’s already 11pm and you feel like you just got home from work* – find a way to start logging your time effectively.

So everyone share their own experience (or lack of it) with time management – confess the nature of the deepest hole your time disappears to – or blow my solution out of the water with a way better one. Do all of this and more in the comments below.

*This does not apply to people whose shifts end at 10:30pm, don’t worry coffee-slingers.