Ryan Mathews wrote:

<Snip!>

Well, two months have gone by, Mother's Day has come and gone, and I
have written *squat*.  No, scratch that.  I wrote the prologue four
weeks ago, but it's garbage and I can't release it.  Near the end, I
was getting tired, but I was afraid to quit writing for fear I
wouldn't be able to start again any time soon, so I rushed it.

Take your time, better a few great lines done ever second day than a
page of mediocre oatmeal done in a few hours.
 

I am having a great deal of trouble finding time to write while
working full-time.  Work takes the best hours of the day from me.
I'd love to write after coming home, but I just don't know how.  I'm
too drained.  In a sense, the problem is that my job is too
interesting.  As a software engineer, I write code and hunt down bugs
all day long.  By the end of the day, I'm all thunk out.  When I sold
shoes, I had problems with being tired, but I still managed to push
out a chapter of something every month.  The job was maddeningly
boring, so I had plenty of time to work through story ideas in my
head.

Well, myself I write whenever the urge strikes me.  While I'm on break,
I'll doodle a line or an idea for the next scene that comes to mind.  Then
I'll think on these ideas and lines and extract the good stuff (I'd like to think)
and refine them so they're more pure and will have more of an effect (got to cut
back on those ego-boosting waffles).  Also, I find writing, or even `plotting'
writing (mine or other people who I *try* to do C&C for - my apologies once again
Mr. Row for not getting back to you), to be very relaxing and soothing after a day
at work, not to mention it's cheaper than a therapist. 

I'd be curious to know how other people manage to work full-time and
still remain an active fanfic writer.  Or perhaps fanfic writing is
better left to the college kids.  :-(

Oh, an *active* fanfic writer.  :)

Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut then, since I'm still working on my fic and 
have only posted the prologue and Ch 1 on the FFML.  And only in their draft form,
as well.

But, seriously, don't give up mr. Mathews; better to try your best and fail, then 
to never try at all, and wonder always *what if...?*. 

Just my   - $0.02
:-S

Thanks,
 
-- 
The Apprentice:

        Student of the Dark Side.  Keeper of the Vlad `Assassins are People
Too!' Taltos shrine.  Wage slave at the J-C Corporation.

Darkness is the true state of the Universe.  It existed before the Light
came.  It will exist after the Light is gone.