Working in Writing While Working this Week

I am finding time for alliteration even while working a full-time job! I woke up this morning with a goal in mind: find as many ways to work in writing this week. I have been in training for my new job the last two weeks and while I have been able to write a little, I am far from my ideal writing habit.

I haven’t been too hard on myself, as I needed to give myself time to adjust to a new job, but as I’m starting the third week, I have decided to “buckle down” and go with a test run of some ideas I have had.

This is a brief outline of my writing plan:

Podcasts

Every morning this week, I am going to listen to a podcast on the commute to work. I downloaded enough episodes to get me through this week. The podcast I am listening to this week is The Odyssey. It appeared on a list of useful podcasts for writers, so I decided to give it a go. I listened to the first episode this morning and I am pleasantly surprised by how informative it was. The episode was an excerpt of an author’s writing workshop, and he provided lots of tips for writers. These tips included how to describe characters without their descriptions seeming too heavy-handed and the importance of setting in a story.

Re-Thinking Lunch Breaks

I am currently writing this post on my lunch break outside of a McDonald’s. I’m the type of person who needs to leave work on my lunch break just for a change of atmosphere, so I was on the lookout for public WiFi. Conveniently, there is a McDonald’s a quarter mile away from work, so I grabbed a snack from the drive-thru and set up with my laptop in the comfort of my car. There is also a Starbucks nearby, so I have another close location for quick blog posts.

It is my goal this week to do some sort of writing (blogging, journaling, creative writing, etc.), even if it is a haiku, on every lunch break.

Multi-Tasking

As I have returned to work, I am not able to go on nice, long walks during the day with my beloved dog. Instead, I walk him in the mornings and late afternoons (Alex walks him during his lunch break). I have realized that those half hour to hour long walking sessions are also a convenient time for me to check out other people’s blogs and network with other writers. Therefore, I have decided I am going to use those walking times to get inspired by all the bloggers out there. I might even try reading books at this time, although I have never been big on reading long texts electronically.

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I am giving this week a trial run with these goals to see the best areas for fitting in writing and writing-related tasks into my busy schedule. I will post how this week goes and will also share any tips on what I learn.