{"id":608,"date":"2012-01-20T06:00:05","date_gmt":"2012-01-20T12:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=608"},"modified":"2012-01-20T06:00:05","modified_gmt":"2012-01-20T12:00:05","slug":"the-work-standard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=608","title":{"rendered":"The Work Standard"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Music<\/a>
My NaNo Workspace in 2011<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You\u2019d think that writing would consist of only a pen or pencil and paper or butt in chair and fingers on keyboard. It\u2019s a\u00a0 little more than that, sometimes and every writer that works on a computer has his favorite piece of software or favorite kind of pen. We all have rituals and peccadilloes that help us get into the Zone, where all the best writing happens. We use physical tools to trigger the necessary mental state.<\/p>\n

Yeah, it\u2019s weird. Stay with me, though.<\/p>\n

The Physical Tools:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pens<\/em> – I\u2019m very partial to a certain kind of Uniball pen, black and micro point. It writes smoothly across all sorts of papers and runs about $2.28 or so per pen. For a disposable it\u2019s damn good.<\/p>\n

Paper<\/em> – I\u2019m okay with just about any kind of spiral notebook that\u2019s cheap but I like Moleskine notebooks, too. Also little scraps of paper I pick up here and there. Napkins, the back of my hand\u2026<\/p>\n

Computer<\/em> – I use a MacBook Pro. It\u2019s about two years old now and decrepit in all kinds of ways but it\u2019s got to last me another year or so. Maybe longer. I\u2019ve always been a Mac guy because when I was a poor kitchen worker back in the old days of the mid 90s I could get a computer financed through my job. It was a great deal and I\u2019ve had – let\u2019s see – \u00a0three computers since the fall of 1995. I’m a fan.<\/p>\n

Software<\/em> – I wrote exclusively in Word until 2010 when I discovered Scrivener<\/a>. Wow. This program runs Word off the reservation for functionality. Seriously, just try it. You can test drive it for 30 days to find out if you like it or not. I\u2019ve been using it for a couple of years now and I\u2019m still discovering things I can do: like keep all my notes with the story I\u2019m working on so I don\u2019t have to flip through thousands of pieces of paper.<\/p>\n

As for routine – I\u2019m a morning guy. I get up with the chickens, go through the same morning rituals everyone else does and eat breakfast before I sit down to write. One important thing is that I get dressed for the day job before I start writing. This is important because it helps me get my head in the proper space to slip into The Zone. Typically I have anywhere from 30 – 45 minutes to write before the day job calls and I can crank out anywhere from 500 to 1000 words in that time, depending upon how quickly I can get into The Zone.<\/p>\n

Once I\u2019m there, I lose all track of time and that\u2019s where something like FocusBooster <\/a>comes in real handy. It keeps track of time for me and rings a nifty little bell when time\u2019s up.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not everything, though. I have to have some secrets to keep. Ask me when you see me. Maybe I\u2019ll tell you something that no one else knows but works for me when I’m writing in the evenings…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019d think that writing would consist of only a pen or pencil and paper or butt in chair and fingers on keyboard. It\u2019s a\u00a0 little more than that, sometimes and every writer that works on a computer has his favorite piece of software or favorite kind of pen. We all have rituals and peccadilloes that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[959,1172],"class_list":["post-608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mechanics","tag-routine","tag-tools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}