Making Time, Making Energy
Writing takes emotional and physical energy. And time.
This means you have to prioritize time and energy if writing is something you want to do. One of the biggest mistakes I see novice or unpublished (not necessarily the same thing!) writers committing is trying to fit writing in the same way you fit in bathroom breaks. Or not quite, because writing doesn’t have the same biological urgency a full bladder does. (At least, not for most people.)
Plenty of novices/unpublished writers get to the end of their day job, go home, deal with Home Stuff, and find themselves staring at a blank screen. Then they panic, because the words don’t come flying out. The negative self-talk starts.
I can’t do this. I’m a loser. I’ll never get published. This is too hard.
And before you know it, they stop writing, or they get frustrated and spend their limited energy bitching, or they end up surfing the Internet. (Not that I’ve ever, um, personally…oh look! Shiny object! Look!)
Julia Cameron, in The Artist’s Way, talks about “filling the well”. Creating stuff takes energy, you need to build up a store of that energy. It’s the same principle Judith Beck talks about when she says you have to set aside priority and energy for lifestyle changes. “If you had to make time for a lifesaving medical procedure three times a day, you would.”
I often talk about making writing a priority. It needs to be important enough to you that you can arrange some bits of your life to make sure you have the energy and time to Do It.
Dr. Beck suggests making three columns on a piece of paper: necessary, highly desirable, and desirable activities. Then you list the things that you do on a daily basis–if you spend time doing it, write it down on a separate sheet. Then go through, one by one, and figure out how important each one is to you. Activities that are “necessary” get first priority, activities that are “highly desirable” need to be examined to see just how desirable they REALLY are. Activities that are merely “desirable” can be scaled back.
Then, list the hours of the day, from the time you get up from the time you go to bed, on another sheet of paper. Work out a schedule that gives you time for all the necessary things. You can add some highly desirable things too. Don’t be afraid to erase and change things around.
I know a lot of people don’t have the luxury of having writing be their Day Job. I know a lot of people hold down two jobs and raise kids. I know this isn’t really as simple as I’m making it sound. The point here is not “you’re weak for not scheduling your time right.” The point here is “YOU DESERVE TO DO THINGS THAT MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD.” If writing is one of those things, and writing for publication is your goal, then you need to shift some other things–like Internet surfing or what-have-you–to make room and energy for it. And you have the absolute right to say, “I need some time to myself to make these things happen.”
I often say that a kitchen timer is a writer’s best friend. I’ve often set mine and told everyone in my house, “When that rings, you can have my attention again. In the meantime, unless someone’s bleeding or dying, leave me be.” And I stuck to that. I successfully enforced that boundary because I had to–if I didn’t make deadline, I wouldn’t get paid, and my kids wouldn’t eat. That was a hell of a motivation.
As I’m learning to set other boundaries (it’s taken me a while, but better late than never, right?) I’m finding out that making time for writing is a skill I have to constantly practice. I get distracted by People Who Neeeeeeeed Me, or by shiny things, or by things that aren’t precisely a priority but I get wrapped around the axle about anyway. I have to constantly remind myself that sitting down for the words, making time and energy so I can do these things, is non-negotiable. So, take heart: it’s not the sort of skill you get once and then forget about. It’s a constant process, and you can start taking steps toward it at any time. You can refine it at any time, add to it, find out new and better ways to make it work for you.
All right, dear Reader, now we get to the question part of today’s post. How do you make time for writing or other Important Stuff? What works for you? I’m always on the lookout for new strategies, and this is the sort of information that makes more happiness the more it’s shared. So what do you do? Don’t be shy, tell me.
After all, I need all the help I can get.
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Tags: pennyworth advice, questions from the edge, shooting from the hip, the internets they know everything
January 26th, 2010 at 10:17 am
I just finished reading The Power of Less by Leo Babauta, which has very similar tips to those listed above when it comes to Making Time for Important Things. I’ve narrowed my focus to one project at a time, instead of jumping around, and am working on not letting myself get distracted by things like the internet during the time allotted for writing. My productivity has already increased a huge amount just by making sure I’m only trying to do one thing at a time instead of trying to multi-task. I highly recommend the book for those who feel overwhelmed by the busy pace of life, or looking for advice on how to focus on the really important things in your life.
January 26th, 2010 at 10:51 am
I rearrange my sleep schedule. By which I mean, sometimes I don’t do much in the way of sleep at all. I don’t recommend it on a regular basis. But my kiddo is still young enough to not understand the “Mum is writing right now” concept. She’s trying, bless her, though not in the way I’d like her to. There have been times when she is bound and determined to do something she knows I would not approve of, and in order to get my attention focused elsewhere she will point at the computer imperatively and command “Mommy? GO WRITE!”. So oftentimes it becomes a case of writing after she and Hubby go to bed. The best nights are those where Hubby doesn’t have to work the next day because that means I can write til 2 in the morning and then SLEEP IN. Oh the luxury.
While I’m here, Lilith, I wanted to thank you for being a constant inspiration to me. When I first discovered LJ’s fangs_fur_fey community I was very close to giving up the craft entirely–time and stress, disappointment and a hellova lot of self doubt were taking their toll. After talking to you I started making the effort again because honestly? I was happiest when I had a story running away with me. Between you and another good writer friend (Jennifer Linforth, she does historicals for the most part) I got enough of a boost to keep me going. Now if I can’t stop. And you know what? I’m glad.
I tell everyone who asks that you are the type of writer who will give you the kick in the arse that is exactly what is needed sometimes. Thank you for being that type.
January 26th, 2010 at 11:20 am
If I’ve been writing regularly for a while, I start to get a bad feeling when I don’t – like an unpleasant itch or something. It gets worse the longer I go without writing again!
I personally have a hard time with “You deserve to do things that make you feel good” – There’s this feeling like writing has to be justified in some way, an implication that if you aren’t good enough to be published, you should just “stop wasting time on it” or whatever… At this point I’ve internalized that idea to such an extent that it’s hard to shake. I would never think it about someone else, but I sure judge myself that way…
January 26th, 2010 at 11:32 am
I get up earlier than before and leave home two hours before I start my dayjob to sit at a café and write. Sometimes it gets less, but I always get there.
I don’t have the brain to do anything when I get home in the evenings so this was what time I could mark up as my own.
January 26th, 2010 at 11:35 am
The best thing that I’ve found recently was actually shared by another of my favorite authors C.E. Murphy. It’s a chat room. We log in and have “word wars” where we pick a start time and then write for 30 minutes straight. At the end we all announce how many words we wrote in that time frame. Then take a short 5, 10, 15 minute break and do it again. I’m a competitive type so this really works for me. I find I can get my daily word count goal done fairly quickly and for some reason the competitive spirit of it seems to unblock that blank page panic for me. The livejournal community is http://community.livejournal.com/toonowrimo/ and the chat room where the wars actually happen is http://www.tinychat.com/vjp2m. Everyone is welcome.
January 26th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Sadly, I am still trying to figure out how to make the time I need for writing. Up until now, it’s been a “write when I have time” type of thing. But that’s just not enough, and I’m finally admitting it.
The only thing I’ve done so far that has actually worked (rather than just contributed to the frustration) is to prioritize my “to do” list. Once I know what’s most important for me to accomplish, I can more easily focus on that, instead of spending the first half-hour of my limited creative time trying to figure out what to work on.
And one area I need to improve on is the “when I’m writing, leave me alone” training for the rest of the family. They mean well, bless them, but …
January 27th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
I make the time for my writing. Now that I have a 5-month-old at home with me my time is limited, for the moment. But, I have learned to write when she is asleep at at night since she is now sleeping all the way through the night. If I’m not writing, I’m reading books or writer’s blogs to keep my creativeness going. Writing for publication is something that I want and I know that I can get it if I keep at it. There’s no way around it. Happy writing Lilith. Great post today, as always. Thanks for sharing.