I used to believe that productivity can only come out of a rigid schedule. Wake up at an exact time every day. Begin writing at an exact time. Set specific and rigorous deadlines for yourself. Be consistent in your process and hold yourself to it with every project.
Well, I’m starting to realize that “rigid” and “productive” aren’t synonyms - and “consistency” in the writing process is something of a laughable myth. Every project is different; it has a different voice, new characters, new intent - and that newness will leech into the process and mutate it. Every time it seems! Maybe it’s just me. I’m always roving and searching for new genres, genre-mashups, ways to flip things on their head - and that usually means flipping my own process on its head.
But that’s okay. I’m realizing that fluidity, that real flexibility is the goal. Not just with the process from the 30,000 ft. view (research to beat sheet to outline to draft to revisions, etc.) but even from the day to day approach. I still aspire to be rigorous and ambitious and productive of course. But some days, my inspiration may take me down a rabbit hole of in-the-weeds research when I “should” be breaking story structure. Maybe I need to know how polymetallic deep-sea nodules are harvested before I can understand who this scientist is truly - what decisions she’ll make… and that’ll determine the structure.
The process is only arbitrary if you decide what you’re doing in a vacuum, away from your actual story. Maybe I’ll become more methodical with every project, but something tells me this method accepts chaos as an ingredient. And that’s okay… as long as you do actually stick to those deadlines!