I've been at my Mum's all during lockdown and I've not had my own room. But I have been doing something towards my writing every day as part of the #100DayProject - this has included reading old journals, working through Stephen Fry's poetry book, reading a book called Outlining Your Novel which has gotten me really inspired, watching world-class theatre online, tinkering about with 10 pages of a screenplay. Just trying different things.

But now I am on Day 51 and I have a real hunger to start getting more structured and get stuck into an actual project. I'm able to return to my desk, there it is in the picture, which is great as there is no table space at my mother's and it made it really hard to get stuck into writing something properly. Watching Simon's class really gave me a good framework to plan how to get more serious about my practice.

SACRED SPACE

This isn't really possible at my Mum's, so I'm going to start coming into my desk for the longer sessions of my writing practice. I can keep this as my mainstay, but I'm also going to keep doing little bits and pieces while on the couch at home as a kind of bonus, and as I've been going on a lot of walks, I'm thinking of picking up a notebook to jot things down when I'm on the go. I am thinking of bringing something nice into my desk to make it a bit more special when I write - a plant, a quote, a nice candle I can light while I am writing.

My virtual space is a mess too, so I would like to put some time in my writing day towards tidying up my desktop and my hard-drive and get rid of old, defunct documents, so I know what's there and where everything is.In

FIND YOUR MEDIUM

I think novel brainstorming and outlining can be done free-hand as well as writing poetry, for which I have a special notebook. Any drafting or editing or articulating structure can be done on my laptop, preferably in Scrivener. Same with writing dialogue. Any notes on the fly can be taken on Evernote.

Any handwritten notes I can keep in specific notebooks for specific projects so I'm not sorting out a big mess in the aftermath

READ INSPIRING WORKS

I read way too much non-fiction, so I resolve to read more fiction. The best time is before I go to bed. There are a couple of books I'm interested in reading at the mo, so I might load them onto my kindle and get going. One of the problems with me reading fiction though, is that sometimes I get so hooked, I drop everything else and keep reading until I finish the novel. And this messes up my routine. So maybe I will instead adopt the Stephen King strategy of bringing it around and reading it in spare and downtime moments.

I think keeping favourite books near me and rereading them is a great idea - favourites of mine are Bluets by Maggie Nelson, Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, The River by Jez Butterworth, The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt, anything by Rilke, and Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery. Most of them I have on my Kindle.

There are books I haven't finished that I kind of want to give one more chance to - like On the Road, Crime and Punishment and Master & Margarita. If I don't get through them this time, I'll give up!

Also, Madeline Miller mentioned in an interview that she starts every writing day by reading some poetry as it brings her alive to the possibilities of language more. I really like that idea, so I'll keep a couple of anthologies on my desk.

SET YOUR CONDITIONS

This is the most important one. Today, I went to my desk, but somehow got inveigled into loads of Whatsapp conversations, and everything took way longer and I couldn't concentrate. I have a special app called Freedom which will knock off apps and websites for me for a fixed period of time, so I can use that for my periods of writing time.

I'd like to make my space a little more pleasant too, so maybe I'll get a plant, wait for an inspiring picture to present itself, a candle, tape a quote to my computer.

In order to feel good, I get between 7 and 8 hours sleep, drink only on special occasions (which is never at the mo!), do my yoga and meditation practice in the morning and run or cycle or skateboard at some point in the day. Diet-wise, I'd like to eat more vegetarian food and have more fruit for breakfast.

I think I am more clear-headed in the morning, so I should just get up early and leave for my desk then. I will try not to schedule other things for the morning and keep this good time for my writing.

SET MY ROUTINE

I have other things - my teaching and my singing, so I've hit on a good plan for that. If I do a 3 hour session of one of these each day in rotation with one day a week off. And then do an hour of them on the days where they don't have a longer session, I calculated, that's 5 hours a day work, 6 days a week, which is kind of 30 hours a week doing things I'm mostly interested in without too much pressure.

If something else crops up, I could set myself an absolute minimum of 30 minutes doing something towards my writing.

I will also plan these sessions in advance, and keep a record of what I cover.

SKETCHING/STAYING INSPIRED

I like the idea of copying paragraphs I love. So I'll dig out my old favourites and do that. I want to try object work, and collecting character sketches, and sifting through my old notebooks to see what I find. I'm interested in trying out found poems with old bits of writing.

I'm currently learning how to outline, so that is something I can do with several of the ideas I have floating around in my head at the moment and flesh them out that way (in different notebooks of course)

I'm working through a book on formal poetry at the moment, so I do the exercises from that.

I'd also like to do more play-wrighting exercises for which I have loads of books and prompts. A teacher suggested writing scenes daily.

I think overall, just to work a period of sketching into each session might work, and then it might take off and I'll start doing it in my down time. It's just building the habit.

OVERALL

The main thing is that I start showing up to writing time, clock in, and then let things happen from there.

POINTS OF ACTION

Get some large notepads for freehand work and new pens and highlighters

Do a bit of a recap on Scrivener so I can get the most out of it

Download those novels I want to read

Get used to using Freedom

Sarah O'Toole

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