Human nature wants the unavailable; the multi-story doll house, the upgraded video console, the fully loaded convertible. For me this week, the "unavailable" object of my desire is time to write. As I teach in this Intensive (8 hours per day) graduate seminar at my university, I desperately miss my stolen moments between tasks to write. Even this blog has been neglected in order to attend to my students.
What can you do when writing time simply isn't possible? You have three valuable options: think, jot, plan.
Think: Let your mind wander around a topic or listen to the characters play out scenes that you can transcribe later. Work out challenging scenes in a "what it" manner: what if he did this or what if she made that choice.
Jot short notes, like a word association exercise. These can be character names, places to include in scenes or phrases to remember for dialogue. I confess that there are "writing jots" in the margins of the textbook from which I am teaching my class. A student comment, something from the text or my own random thought provides the ideas to develop later.
Plan: In between classes, back at the hotel relaxing or waiting in the airport, I can sketch out an action outline to be fleshed-out later. I can also take a previously developed outline and add details. Or I can use my calendar to revise the writing schedule for when I return to my home office.
No matter how much I add by the think-jot-plan method, I know that I'll be so grateful to be back to my writing schedule that my typing fingers will cramp from the speed. Ideas are piling up in my brain like rush hour traffic. If absence does make the heart grow fonder, perhaps time away from writing is a strong motivator to increase productivity and remember how beloved is the written word (particularly my own!).
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