Calgary
I'm in Calgary, Alberta, for a couple of days, for the Fall 2006 Write-Off retreat organized by Imaginative Fiction Writers Association. It goes through Sunday evening, but I have to leave Sunday morning, 'cause I'm off to Regina, Saskatchewan, where I'm giving a keynote at a conference on nursing in 2020, sponsored by the Saskatchewan Registered Nurses Association.
Then Monday morning, I spend the whole damn day flying to get to Montreal -- I'd have thought there'd be direct flights between Regina and Montreal, but there aren't. Monday and Tuesday, I'm doing free public readings at libraries in Montreal; details are here.
Here in Calgary, I've seen the December Asimov's on sale, which has another poem, "Copyright Notice," by my brother-in-law David Livingstone Clink (look for it on page 5 -- it's easy to miss, 'cause it looks like a real copyright notice). And I'm tickled pink that Susan Forest, my friend and one of my writing students, has her first Asimov's story in this issue as well (page 50).
Also now on sale is the December 2006 Analog, with the third of four parts of the serialization of my next novel, Rollback.
Posted by Rob on Friday, October 13, 2006
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5 comments
5 Comments:
When do you have time to write?
Seriously, how much of your authorial day do you spend writing and how much is spent on other authorial activities? How many of the latter are essential and how many are voluntary?
I've always just assumed that Rob's time-managment skills are infinitely superior to those of an average person...or mine, at least.
John F
Anybody who's spent any time with Rob knows that he talks to himself. A lot. And those that don't know him well have commented about this constant rambling and their concern that he may be related to the Belcebron people of Kakrafoon. But what they don't realize is that there is a tiny microphone in his glasses that is hooked up to his PocketPC thingy and with his voice recognition software he's actualy writing as he's strolling around town, parks, outings, etc.
So really he's just a cool guy who knows what he wants out of life and how to manage his time to get there.
Cheers.
Hi, George.
I do a lot of writing on airplanes. I have a NEC MobilePro 780 (with 790 ROM) Windows Mobile palmtop computer, bought on eBay for around a hundred bucks, which is a perfect little computer for writing in cramped spaces (and I run WordStar on it with a DOS emulator).
I'd say about half my time thesed ays has been spent on actual fiction writing (although that's what generates 90% of my income) and the other half is on other interesting things (editing, teaching, the occasional article, giving keynote addresses, and so on). However, my goal for 2007 is to get it to be 75% writing and only 25% the other stuff. :)
Time-management is a huge issue, of course. I'm lucky enough to do sufficiently well at this writing game to employ my wife as my full-time assistant, and she helps enormously in dealing with things that would otherwise occupy too much of my time.
When I get home tonight, I'm going to show my wife this post...
I think it's easy for me to over-estimate the amount of time spent on non-writing tasks, because they're so relatively high-profile. Also because it seems so much more disruptive than going to the office day after soul-sucking, sanity-blasting day.
But still -- keep up the good work.
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