time well spent

When I decided to devote a weekend to writing at the cabin, I thought it might be interesting to see just how I used my time. To that end, I tried to keep a log of what/when I was writing. My computer problems appeared at first to thwart that idea, but once I realized I could keep writing, I kept paying attention too.

I arrived at my little cabin at 6:00 p.m. on Friday. There was still about two hours of daylight ahead of me, but there is always so much to do when I first arrive: unpacking the truck, checking on the status of things, paying attention to the living wild forest all around me. I ate my dinner and thought about laying a campfire for the evening, but I was so relaxed just sitting on the porch that I didn’t. Nor did I try to do any active writing right away, though I did some research, including determining just how close up you can see when looking through binoculars. (It features in one of my stories.)

At 8:15 I moved into the cabin and hooked up my computer to the storage battery. All systems were go, and I looked forward to a writing marathon for the next two days. I opened one of my stories, called “Little Gray Birds” and tinkered with it, mostly just making notes and fooling around with words but not trying to add anything substantive to it. A half hour later I turned my attention to my story “When we were young” and spent an hour on it. Again, it was more pencil work than ambitious creative work, but I had begun my writing experiment, which was the whole point. At 9:30 I retired for the night.

I rose at 5:15 on Saturday. The whippoorwills were still calling. My computer still had a full charge, so I charged in as well. I began tinkering with a nonfiction road trip story I’ve been working on for a friend. I pretty much have it done, but it never hurts to come back to something with a fresh eye. I worked on that for about an hour. Then I went down to the lake to fish a while. I got one strike, but whatever it was jumped the hook.

I returned to the cabin at 8:15 and turned my attention to “When we were young” again. This is another piece that is essentially done, but every time I return to it, I find ways to make it better. I spent forty-five minutes at this then began working on a completely new story that I had originally intended to call “Alien Invaders” but soon discovered needed to be named “Work then play.” I love it when that kind of revelation happens.

I worked from 9:00 to 11:00 on this new story and got down 1,700 words. But it was then that I saw my computer battery was down to only 61%. I had already drained the storage battery and was now draining my computer’s battery. In my experience, I had about two hours of computer time left, yet I still had at least 24 hours of cabin time before me.

This surprise made me wonder if I ought to have just given up and gone home. Instead, I did another form of primary research that involved a kind of swimming you can do in such remote places with no one around. Why I hadn’t done this type of swimming before is a mystery to me.

After that, I took a nice nap then went into the nearby town for some supplies. (I also dropped off a bag of books at the local library.)

By 2:00 I was back at the cabin and had finished my lunch. I decided then that I should at least jot down some notes for ideas that had been coming to me about “Work then play.” So I got out my visit journal and mechanical pencil (I keep both at the ready down there) and started scribbling. Two hours later I looked up, finished for the present. But I returned to it soon after, and I kept at it until 6:00 p.m. when I realized I had finished the first draft of the story.

I was pleased with what I had achieved. I had my dinner and began laying a fire in the ring outside the cabin. I never lighted it though. It was the night of the super moon and I had this notion that one ought to experience swimming by the light of a super moon. So rather than get a fire going that I would soon have to leave untended, I left it half built and prepared myself for my swim. In the dark. In a remote and private lake. With no one around. Again.

On Sunday morning I spent a half hour reading what I had written on the computer the day before for “Work then play.” I wanted to see how well it meshed with what I had subsequently written by hand that afternoon. By then the computer battery was nearly gone.

I devoted the rest of the morning to actual chores around the place, dipping into my journal to scribble down notes as they came to me.

In all, it was a successful experiment. I intend to contrive a chance to do it again, and with my lessons learned, I expect to do even better.

more that I learned from my writing weekend

The next time I devote a weekend to writing at my remote cabin in the woods, I’m going to plan a whole lot better. I got a lot done last weekend — an entire short story — and I’m pleased with the productivity, but I can see now that I could have managed my time better.

I had gone into the weekend with mighty ambitions. Too mighty ambitions. I was going to read through two novels of mine. Work on their query letters. Toss off a few short stories. Write some nonfiction. And still manage to have two campfires (with Jiffy Pop!) and at least one swim in the lake.

What I found was that I had successfully written the first draft of one story (with the coincidentally working title of “Work then play”) and made notes for a few others. The lack of power for my laptop may have been a factor in this kind of concentration, but maybe it was an instructive factor.

I think if I had tried to pursue all of my ambitions for the weekend, I would have been spread too thin. I would have achieved a lot of surface work but no substantive work. I don’t need to steal away to a lonely cabin for a weekend to do that; I can get that much done in soulless suburbia.

What I’ve learned, instead, is that I should go into these weekends — and there will be more! — with specific goals in mind. I’ll have options, of course, in case my specific goal goes bust, but I clearly need to focus, to work well on one thing rather than pretty good on a lot of things.

As I said, I wrote the first draft of one of my Fathers and Sons stories, at least half of it with paper and pencil, over the weekend. I’m pleased with that. An entire story in just two days. It’s nowhere near finished, of course, but the core of it is there. (Remember my recent posts where I spoke of compelling myself to just write the damned thing rather than wait until the story was fully realized in my head? This is the fruit of that realization. Is the story perfect? Not yet. But is it less than it would have been if I had allowed it to present itself to me slowly over the years? I don’t think so. And I didn’t have to wait years.)

Life is choices, isn’t it?

I also learned that ice packs won’t keep beer cold for two straight days. And that sub sandwiches get soggy after a day. Bagels dry out in that time. A big tub of store-bought broccoli salad gets monotonous long before you’ve reached the bottom of it. The nearest town is about ten miles away. I can get anything I need there, and just as with my writing goals, I would probably do better bringing less baggage along and replenish as I needed in town rather than try to bring it all with me from the beginning.

I didn’t have those two campfires. I’m nervous about fire in my woods anyway, but being alone, it seemed like a pointless indulgence. I did lay a fire on Saturday night in the fire ring, but I never lighted it. (By now I suspect it’s fallen to pieces and sodden with the half inch of rain that fell after I left.) As for my swimming in the lake, that’s one of the reasons I didn’t have a fire on Saturday night.

In my Father’s and Sons stories, there is a kind of informal baptism in the family’s little lake. This involves fathers (and grandfathers) dipping their naked baby sons in the lake. They, too, are naked. I know. It sounds weird, but it seems natural in a way. And liberating too. Well, how can a fellow possibly write about swimming naked in a lake without having experienced it ever in his many decades of life? Thus I felt I had to do some primary research.

The serendipity of a super moon on Saturday night told me that the gods wanted me to go skinny dipping by the light of this moon. It’s research, folks. It’s honorable. It’s worthy. And let me tell, it’s wonderful!