Great stuff, Scott. A rather long entry... hope you don't mind. My writing time is the weekend. My lovely wife has some medical issues that force her into to some crazy sleep habits. Consequently, she goes to bed around 3 or 4 am and sleeps till 11am. This allows me to go to my local Panera Bread (and no, I have no affiliation with them) to write. I manage around nine hours over the weekend. Not as much time as I would like, because once I get into the ‘Zone’ I don’t want to quit, but it’s enough, for now. I’m always amazed when wannabe writers claim they could write the Great American Novel or an Oscar® winning script, if only they had the time. If you really want it, you will make the time. Here’s a rough idea what my schedule was like in 2011. 1. Rise at 4:15am and drive fifty-one miles to work, arrive around 5:30am. 2. Usually work until 1:30pm – much later at times if I had a meeting to attend or a ‘fire’ to put out – then drive another fifty-one miles home. 3. Every other day, as soon as I walked in the door, I would turn right around and it was off to the nursing home to visit my wife’s mother. 4. One day, every other week, take my wife to doctor’s appointments (she no longer drives). 5. I spent the majority of the summer preparing for my youngest daughter’s wedding. 6. Managed to send beaucoup queries out to managers and producers. A lot of queries. A handful everyday. And along the way made some excellent contacts and received valuable advice in the process. 7. Listen to screenwriting podcasts in the evenings. 8. Moderate The GITS Club most of the year. 9. Jot down notes for my current projects. 10. Write on the weekend. Last year I completed one script and worked my way through half of another. I came up with several more ideas for screenplays (maybe ten or so) and sent thirty-two scripts out to managers and producers. Twelve scripts are still floating around out there waiting for a thumb-up, or thumb-down. For 2012 I plan to inject the following into my weekly schedule: watch one movie a week and read one script a week, both things I have not been doing. Now, don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not making myself out to be some kind of Super Hero Screenwriter, far from it. I am an ordinary guy striving for an extraordinary goal and the only point I am making – the one thing I hope you, Scott's Faithful Readers, take from this ‘rant’ -- is this: if I can do it, you can too! All you have to do is… Keep Writing!

This is an easy one. This past August is when two very big things occurred - I directed my short film and I secured representation. (STRANGE representation but he's an agent nonetheless.) It took a quarter century to get to this point. And I'm giving it a year from that point. After 8/31/12... well, enough is enough. If there's no TANGIBLE reason to continue, I won't. (When I say "tangible," I don't exactly mean 'financial'... more like 'noticeable signs that this could become something more.' I'm not even certain what those signs will look like but I suspect I'll know them when I see them. Sounds abstract, I know...) I've kinda' done everything I've ever wanted to with this stuff. I've written and directed my own film my own way. I've written some scripts that turned out EXACTLY as I'd hoped. I've received all kinds of feedback from my work, both from pros and amateurs, and both positive and negative. In short, while I do have goals, I am, at this very moment, EXACTLY where I want to be on this journey. And even more "in short," I am content. And while that contentment is nice on a personal level, I fear it might not serve me well on a professional one. You other young cats doing this have a fire in the belly that I don't possess. I'm 41. I'm deeply, heavily domesticated. I literally live on a ranch in the country. I'm a stay at home dad to my 5 kids. Doesn't exactly match up to the Hollywood lifestyle. So yeah, I shall do what Scott says - - I'm going the "write the hell" out the remainder of the projects on my list, including one feature that I have been given the greenlight (and the greenBACKS) to direct in the spring. I'll see how my short film does in front of a crowd, await word on the specs my snake oil salesman agent, a single guy who likes to have lots of promiscuous sex (he's an ex-real estate magnate who literally hopes to fuck my scripts right to the top... I'm like, "go for it buddy!"), hawks out in Californication, and watch the cattle graze in the fields surrounding my home. No complaints. I'm at a great place in my life. I feel like Roberto Benigni sometimes, leaping around frenetically screaming, "Everything ees love, life ees beautiful!"

Go Mets!!

The weird thing is, now that I'm writing full-time, I don't seem to be producing that much more work. Something is eating up my time. Better work out what...

Debbie, don't despair! Next week's daily posts will involve inspiration and tips to work more efficiently.

I think I always set goals but I've never really set SMART goals, which probably explains why my goals haven't typically been achieved. This year has to be different. It just has to. I have time off before next term and I'm setting some SMART goals. Normally, I just write down my list of what I want...and then I don't refer to the list or it gets stuck in a notebook I never seem to use or I misplace it. So this year I want to use technology for keeping my goals in one place. I spent a lot of time today finding something that would be simple, send me email reminders, track my progress. So far I'm considering: http://lifetick.com/ -- free version for 4 goals; $20 year for unlimited goals http://www.achievr.biz/ -- free that uses google or facebook account info for login Does anyone have experience with either of these or another recommendation for goal tracking software/websites?

I'm a lucky, lucky guy. My responsibilities largely involve people who want me to succeed as a writer, so doing what it takes to succeed is itself a responsibility. Making time to write is sort of a nebulous thing, simply because I don't maintain any regular daily schedule. Theoretically, I should be writing the four days a week I'm not working the day job and maybe a few hours on the days I am working. The reality is closer to three days at the dayjob, one day off, three days writing, but it's even closer to three days at the dayjob, four days that I think a lot about writing and maybe do some. When it comes to the physical act of writing, I work in fits and starts, depending largely on my mood--I've been dealing with clinical depression for years now, and when I'm down, I just will not write, no matter what my rational mind says. So it's quite feasible that I could spend a month and a half banging my head against a wall trying to make, say, a spec procedural pilot work, then figure it out and do the actual writing of the script in six days from Fade In to handing it to my reps. I've been struggling with another pilot since early July--last week at work I figured out how to make it work. I wrote more than fifty pages of script this past Tuesday and Wednesday. Script that will need polishing, but if I get three days to do that next week I should be fine for handing it in by the end of the year. Unless I start working on yet another spec pilot that I've been toying with that I half-broke while mopping the floor at work today. I'd be a little concerned about my tendency to wait for inspiration to strike, but I've found that when someone gives me a deadline or offers a paycheque, I get inspired pretty damn quick. I'd get a lot more accomplished if I got more of those kinds of things. I don't try to balance my life and my writing, mostly because I don't have to. My wife and family are very supportive of my goals--she's a freelance graphic designer, so she knows how this works. She also works from home, so even if I'm writing for twelve hours a day, we're very close to each other. I'm also a pretty boring person. My house is my favourite place to be; I'm reluctant to leave it if I don't absolutely have to. There aren't many things I'd rather be doing than writing. Even when I'm not writing on my four potential writing days, I'm usually not doing other things to occupy my time, with the exception of walking the dog. I'm just sitting there, turning the project I'm working on over in my head, maybe reading, maybe watching some TV shows or film, but I'm just as likely to be lying in bed staring at the ceiling, waiting for the moment the story's ready for me to tell it and feeling miserable that moment didn't come weeks earlier. As for how many years I've given myself to succeed: as many of them as I need. I've been working on writing of one sort or another for more than 12 years, with varying degrees of success. During that time, my wife and family have invested in me to such a degree that stopping now simply isn't an option. (Written after my bedtime, sorry for any rambling/incoherence, I didn't want to fall behind on the 2012 planning posting.)

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Interesting. I'll check them out. We will be discussing more of this type of thing next week, so hopefully other suggestions will come up

I, too, am lucky as I have few obligations outside of my day job. But even so, I was having trouble through the last three years staying focused. I would go through periodic bouts of what I refer to as "binge writing;" write a play or short or whatever in two days type of thing then slog for weeks through an outline of something. Now I write in 25 minute bursts (with a timer app on my phone) and take a 15 minute break in between. I time it to the second and am amazed at what I can get done. Not only can I make serious progress on a rewrite, my bathroom or kitchen gets cleaned, the dishes and/or laundry done. At the end of the evening, I feel great. A friend of mine does this same method but he does 45 minute increments. It just occurred to me that this sounds like an infomercial. My name is Lisa McFadden and I approve this message (method). heehee