“Wait, what are you doing this week?”
“Dad, I just told you. I’m doing a challenge based on Stephen King’s writing process.”
“I thought you did that last week.”
“No. I mean, yes. That was a writing challenge, and I did do it a couple of weeks ago, but this is something different.”
“OK…”
“You know how I keep going on and on about King’s book On Writing?”
“Yes.”
“Dad, we’re video chatting, I can see you wincing.”
“Yup. You were saying?”
“Well, in the book King talks about his writer’s schedule and his – seriously Dad, I can see you.”
“I’m fine. Writer’s schedule?”
“Right. And his current schedule is brutal. But possibly doable. And since I managed to get through my last writing challenge fairly well, I wanted to see if I could follow King’s current writing process for a week.”
“Ah.”
“Well, the current writing schedule, anyway. I’m not interested in doing coke, let alone doing the amount of coke he was doing in the 80’s.”
“I appreciate that. So what are you going to do?”
- Write 2,000 ‘fairly clean’ words for a creative work each day. (i.e.: Not blog writing or promotional writing.)
- Work on one creative story/piece at a time. (No hopping between stories – we face our writer’s block like men!)
- Get 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day.
- Read a book for at least 30 minutes a day.
“And this is going to be a challenge for you?”
“Honestly Dad, most days I only have enough energy to do one of those things. Doing all three every day for a week is going to be tough.”
“Well, if it’s something that makes you happy and helps you improve your skills, I’m here to support you.”
“Thanks Dad. I just hope my readers will enjoy all the ways I’ll inevitably complain about the whole process.”
“… sorry, your what?”