Tag Archives: writing techniques

Ten Minute Burst

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I’m going to try a Ten Minute Burst (TMB). I just read a few blogs on freshening up my writing, and this is what I came up with. I’ve noticed that I can do a post in a short time if I get my head down, so this is really nothing new, but the idea of actually using it as a writing tool is new. I could do two of them in an hour and I reckon that would produce more than many of the hours I spent looking at a blank screen and filling it word by hard-won word.

I think I may already have failed, as I forgot to note my start time. Plus I don’t actually have much of a plan. “Write” is not, it seems, good enough.

A big problem with this plan is, of course, that I have to prevent myself wandering off on the net. True to form, I have spent most of the last hour doing bits of research and rambling off. It’s been fun, but it’s not been much use from the point of view of working on my Ten Minute Burst technique. Clearly tomorrow will be a sterner test as I have a number of things to rewrite before I submit them. If all goes well I have three or four submissions to make in the next week.

It’s a funny thing – I meant to read up on more writing techniques, but then I started writing so much that I forgot to do it. Just one of life’s many ironies.

One More Quiet Day and a New Leaf

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It has been a restful day today – painkillers overnight, a decent sleep and a morning spent with a hot water bottle. This became an afternoon also spent with a hot water bottle. And cake. It’s been quite good.  Perhaps I have needed to sit down with a hot water bottle and waste time. It’s far more relaxing than sitting at the computer wasting time.

I’m also beginning to think that the problem with my arm and shoulder is RSI rather than arthritis, which is mainly confined to my fingers.

The moral of this is clear – spend less time at the computer. I do my best writing with pen and paper anyway, I have been trying to do more writing at the computer in recent months, but it hasn’t worked out. I thought it would be more efficient if I sat at the computer and made myself write, which would cut out the boring process of typing stuff out. It hasn’t gone to plan – the only thing that has improved is my command of Othello/Reversi and Nine Men’s Morris. A computer in idle hands, is a dreadful thing.

So, drug abuse, my health, fashionable injuries, procrastination. I seem to have covered a range of subjects, but it all sems very self-centred. How is everyone out there? I will try to get round and do some visiting now, as I’ve not been very good about reading recently.

Having said that I have finally started on one of my pile of books to read. It feels good to be reading again, after spending so much time concentrating on writing. Or, to be more accurate, after spending so much time concentrating on procrastination. Time, I think, to turn over a new leaf.