It’s follow-up post day here on the blog, it seems. First I wrote about games, now I’m writing about writing.

Last night, along with some others, I went to a tea shop to write. As mentioned in my earlier post, I’ve found that leaving my apartment usually yields better results and I was hoping for more corroboration of that. I brought with me my laptop and a list of the projects I wanted to work on.

It went very well. In just over two hours I had over 2K words, probably closer to 2.5K, not including sections that I had revised. I worked on two short stories (gaining some momentum in their plots and basically figuring out the ending of one) and two novels (finishing out two chapters). You might think that it was counterproductive to work on so much, but I was able to get enough down to help make them more substantial, but I left off with enough that I could easily jump back into them.

For me, it was a very productive evening. And it made me enthusiastic to continue to get writing done. To keep working on these stories. And having multiple projects on the burners means that I can always switch to something else when one of them cools off.

I’m beginning to think that this might be an optimum strategy for me – aim for about a half hour every day, but then fit in 2 hour (or more) longer sessions where I can put down more words. Not only would it result in steadily producing more, but it would be easier to work around my schedule (because as much as I love writing, I need to have a life, too).

The thing that works best for me in these situations, is that I feel more compelled to write. I sometimes chat for a bit with my companions, but eventually I turn back to the screen. And it actually helps sometimes if the other people in the tea shop are loud or annoying because it only makes me want to put on my headphones and completely immerse myself in what I’m working on.

Next month, some of my fellow writers and I will be going on a 4-5 day writing retreat like we do every year. It’s a similar idea – you’re surrounded by other people writing and away from your home and the usual distractions, so you tend to put more time into the writing. And you have people around to talk about writing or issues you’re having or whatever. But I find that to be a helpful exercise.

So, since I’ve been asking questions in these things lately – for you writers out there, do you regularly write with others? Does it help? Do you find that it helps you focus?