A Little Bit of Structure

School starts tomorrow. (Let me take a second to luxuriate in that last statement.)

Ahhhh. OK.

Summer has its merits but it sucks for writing schedules. I don't work well without some structure to my process, and summer, if you're doing it right, is one meandering, destinationless float down a lazy river. I need a designated writing time every day in order to get anything done. One of my heroes, William Goldman, rented an office in Manhattan and furnished it with a desk, a typewriter and a coffee machine. He showed up five days a week and wrote from 8:30 to 5. I wear more hats than he did--mother, wife, teacher, chef, chauffeur, etc., but I LOVE that idea. Writing is your job, so treat it as such.

I'm fortunate enough to have my days pretty much free when the kids are in school. I write in the mornings after dropping them off, sometimes until lunch, sometimes even after. Yes, I've been known to stare at the monitor for three hours, or wander over to Twitter to torture myself with other writers' word count updates (2000 words today! I'll hit 80K tomorrow!), but the whole butt in seat concept actually works. Some words usually come, and yeah, they might get deleted the next day, but they are there, you know?

So how do you guys get the words out? Are you a morning person like me or do you work best late at night? Do you need to write every day? Are you a word count freak? I'm curious!