Happy Sunday all! This week's topic at the SFF Seven is Preconditions: What must be true before you can sit down to write?
I'm a person who operates by routine and ritual. My brain likes order and completely goes on the fritz if anything feels like chaos around me. For this reason, I can't write in a busy place. I can't even write with music in the background. Some days, if my dogs are a big distraction, I struggle too. That being said, the usual preconditions for me, since I write at home, are that my morning routine is done, the house is calm, and I have a clean space to work.
Over the years, things have certainly changed. I used to need every possible thing you can imagine to be in alignment in order to focus. I've improved drastically in that department, and I've gotten better about not having to clean the ENTIRE house before I can write too. My kids are now grown as well, and that makes my writing routine easier--there's less noise, less distraction, and less mess (I miss them, though!). Now, it's mostly just me and the bulldogs throughout the day.
I have my usual morning routine which means I've turned on the Roomba, had my breakfast, completed my email checking/social media posts, done some laundry, changed into my 'writer clothes,' tended my Etsy store, cleaned up the kitchen and whichever room I feel like writing in that day, fed and watered the dogs, lit a candle, gotten my water ready for the day, and THEN I'm good to go. If I'm in hardcore writing mode--trying to complete a draft or revisions--I can force myself to ignore some of the above like laundry and cleaning and social media, but I'm not a fan of doing that. I need the structure of my typical morning.
Now, any other time of day? Like, if I don't wake up and act like I'm going to a day job that just so happens to be in my office on my daybed? Not much has to be true at all. I've been known to write short stories in the Notes app on my cell phone in the bath. I've written scenes on a notepad in the grocery store. Dialogue often hits me at night as I try to go to sleep. When something strikes my brain, I get it down.
So I suppose you can say that sometimes I have preconditions and sometimes I don't.
What about you? What must be true before you can sit down to write?
~ Charissa
