Focus is one of the most important ingredients for getting
work done.
As a freelancer, coming back to work after a year of
illness, I was trying to work on anything and everything in a rather
scattershot fashion. I mined my files for ideas for articles, bought and
studied magazines and a new market book. Sent off a couple pieces to a
non-paying market to hone my rusty skills.
Thanks to an energetic writer’s group, I’ve written a blog a
week and articles for our weekly newsletter. I pulled one of kid’s book
manuscripts from a drawer and entered it in a contest and sent out some
fillers.
Then I read in The
Writer (May 2012) about numerous 30
day projects. That got me thinking. What would it be like to work on a single
project for a month straight?
Our writer’s group decided to take on this challenge using
Karen S. Wiesner’s First Draft in 30 Days. We’ll meet in early June to
preview the project and how we as a group can help each other sustain and work
through a fiction book. Four of us are fiction writers and each has a story
idea.
Since my health is not 100%, I decided to do a test run. My
husband and I have piles of notes we intended some day to put in book form.
It’s the story of our work among the Natives of Quebec where we spent ten
years. I decided to make this material my “focus” for thirty days. What I’ve
discovered amazes me.
By choosing to focus on a single project, I have produced
more material than I believed possible. And as I suspected there have been days
when I could not work. But even then, my husband and I talked about our
experiences. I gleaned his insights and clarified details I was fuzzy about. I
jotted notes. I realized I was ‘interviewing” my husband and myself. So even
what I considered “lost days” became profitable because my mind was centered on
this project.
Focus has been the key. I’m looking forward to our group
project. Even though any of us might have a day or so when we can’t work at the
desk or computer, we can “stay in the book.”
My own foray has taught me that a sustained period of work
on one project produces a wealth of material. Editing will come later, but
there will be plenty of pages to work on.
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