"Protection" was the next thing I thought of, but that's not exactly the focus I wanted for this post. I've written about protecting my time. About protecting my writing time, my sleep time, my down time. Not really what I meant.
Then I remembered thinking a week or two ago that I had thoughts of my "soft time" in my schedule. There are some things I have set up now that are pretty much set in stone (at least for the next eleven weeks) and some things that have become expectations of being somewhat regular in my schedule. And then there are the other things I do that are maleable - may be present or not, may happen or not, and the schedule is not set. Soft times.
Writing has been one of those - with exceptions. And the exceptions are getting more - especially as I'm working on the bigger projects: the memoir and the novel. And now I have writing buddies who help keep me motivated and keep me on track. We keep each other on track - accountable - keep the words flowing and keep it fun.
I had a planned schedule where I had regular times booked in for writing and some "soft time" that could be writing time. And some "soft writing time." Guess what? Some of those "soft times" may get work thrown into them - but at least not all of them.