The Room And The Will
Crossposted to the Deadline Dames
A friend of mine is considering moving. “I just want to live on my own,” she said to me this afternoon, while the wind made my chimes ring like rattlesnakes. “I want to be able to sit in my underwear with pizza and a beer and a book. I just need it, you know.”
“Oh, honey,” I said, squinting in the sunlight, “I know.”
Virginia Woolf said that money and a room of one’s own is a prerequisite for woman writers. I tend to agree. Certainly getting one’s career to a place where one can comfortably support oneself, or not having to worry overmuch about food and rent, is a marvelous thing.
But I didn’t start out with it.
I have learned to write in any situation imaginable. I started in school writing furiously at every moment I could steal from classes. One of my teachers let me keep a box of spiral notebooks in her classroom over the summer, since I didn’t have hiding places at home. I exercised my youthful ingenuity to hide my diaries and stories at home when I lost that opportunity, used friends’ houses and employee lockers to keep my words safe from prying and punishment. When I left, I hid my notebooks in closets and other places, just to be safe.
I stole moments to write plot outlines on notepads at several jobs. I spent my lunch hours and breaks writing furiously in spiral notebooks between bites of whatever I could afford–or just writing because I couldn’t afford a snack. I learned to write with toddlers around, one half of my brain scanning constantly to anticipate their needs or any danger to them. I learned to write in a house full of shrieking “LOOK AT ME! I DON’T EXIST UNLESS YOU LOOK AT ME! LOOKLOOKLOOK!” (Note: only two of the people screeching that were under 10. The rest…well. Whole ‘nother blog post there.)
I’ve written on trains and planes, I’ve written on buses and in parks, I’ve written in libraries, I’ve written in casino bars, other bars, in bathrooms late at night while the people I’m staying with are asleep. I’ve written in classrooms, coffee shops, head shops, cafes, community centres, all-night restaurants, even in the closed-down delis of major supermarket chains. Finding a space to sit down and whip out my notebook–or lug my laptop to–has become somewhat of an art form.
Do it where you gotta has been by mantra for a long time. Now that I have a house and a chair and a lapdesk, where I can sit cross-legged and pound out text while the whole place is silent because the kids are at school…
…well, it’s been a shock. I’m used to concentrating fiercely in the face of distraction. The silence of the house is a type of distraction I’m not insulated against. I used to keep music on to provide a thread under the other sounds I could jack into and ride while I typed. Now I play it because sometimes the empty house makes me start up in almost-terror sometimes, thinking the kids are Altogether Too Quiet and Up To Mischief.
My productive hours are in somewhat of a flux now. I used to be a champion insomniac, first because I’m built to be a night owl and second because the wee hours were the only damn time nobody needed anything from me. Now I’m finding different chunks of my “day” to be productive, because I finally have space and solitude.
Which brings me to something I consider a Rule. All applicable disclaimers, etc., etc., but here it is:
If you WANT to write, you will more than likely FIND TIME to write.
Yes, I know. “I’m too poor/busy/tired/something! I don’t have time! I can’t find a space!”
Often I hear this from people who are overscheduled or who don’t set boundaries instead of truly being unable. I am willing to concede that whoever, whatever their situation, may be too tired/busy/whatever to write. Billions of people don’t write, and they get along just fine.
I am not one of those people who gets along fine without writing.
I wrote while effectively homeless. I wrote while being a single mother working full-time and going to school. I wrote while raising two small children and cleaning up after a Very Large Child. I think one of the main reasons I’ve achieved a sort of quiet success is because writing has always been a priority to me. I felt I would go mad if I didn’t write. I put writing in with my basic needs of food and shelter, and that is a component of the psychotic persistence several writers (don’t really) joke about being necessary to get published.
It was necessary for me to continue writing. Being paid for it is where I’ve ended up, and that’s just fine by me. I like it that way. I would still be doing this if I didn’t have a room of my own and a lock on my door. In fact, for the rest of my life, putting words together is something I’m going to be doing. I can’t help it.
I say this so you will understand the advice I am about to give. This advice is free, so take it or leave it.
Finding time in a day to sneak writing in, learning to pick up a story and dive in when you only have five or fifteen minutes, getting your wordcount out rather than watching the telly or playing that video game, is essentially saying “This is important to me.” I don’t promise that you will get published if you train yourself to make writing a priority and set boundaries around your writing time. I can promise that your chances of getting good enough to have a reasonable shot at being published will go up with every minute you spend making writing your priority.
If that’s where you’re aiming, okay. Do it where you gotta. Write down the activities you participate in on a daily basis and figure out which ones are essential (like paying rent or eating), which are very desirable (like maintaining your relationship with your real friends, or what-have-you), and which are just desirable (playing a video game, watching television. Note these are just MY examples, yours will be different.). Move writing from the “just desirable” category into the “essential” category, the things you make time for because you’ve just plain got to–or even into the “very desirable” category. Find the time by cutting it elsewhere, if you’re serious. If you’re not serious, it’s OK. There are plenty of other things to do in this wide varied world of ours. Go do them and be merry.
This is why I say I “tend” to agree with Virginia. Of course, I have the benefit of being in a culture and of a socioeconomic section where I have certain advantages, and I realize that. However, I was not always in this socioeconomic or cultural slice, and many other successful writers I know weren’t (or aren’t) either. The room of your own is nice, and the money is damn nice.
But it is the will to find a way that is essential. Without it, the room is just a room.
It’s up to you to fill it.
Over and out.
Related posts:
Tags: about me, deadline dames, Friday Writing, pennyworth advice, shooting from the hip, what we know is true
March 19th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
This is so true. One of the biggest excuses I hear for not writing is that people don’t have time. And when you are desperate for it, you just make time.
I work full time and have a husband and child and house to take care of, and I make time for this because it’s important. Really it’s about priority, though. Because if I’m not writing, it’s almost always because I’ve let something slip in and steal my time, whether that’s tv or games or whatever.
But it’s one of my goals to make a living with my writing so I can have eight hours of my day back. I have a feeling that’ll help me balance the rest of it better.
March 19th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
I work as a freelance copywriter. I live off of the words I produce.
I was interviewing for a temp contract a couple months back and the interviewer said “So when do you tend to write? Are you a morning person? An afternoon person? When do you get writer’s block?”
It was one of those dumbfounded moments where you just stare blankly in response. I mean, I assume they might have had some sort of prima dona writer in the past and were wary of repeating the problem, but the only thing I could think of to say was “I’m a writer. If I don’t write, I don’t eat.” I don’t have the luxury, with my professional writing, to just not work because it’s the wrong time of day. Obviously I have dud hours and dud days where every word I put together comes out wrong, but I have to keep pounding the keys, you know?
It’s done marvels for my fiction productivity, too. And likewise my “write it all the way through, don’t get caught up in perfection” approach that NaNoWriMo taught me years and years ago helps me finish my copywriting drafts.
I can’t afford to wait for inspiration or that perfect moment. And I realized I don’t actually need inspiration or that perfect moment to write. They are nice when they happen but they’re not necessary.
I do fight the constant battle against distraction when I work, but that’s a matter of learning my weaknesses and trying to defeat them!
March 20th, 2010 at 7:04 am
I don’t know how you can write while people are talking. I start typing out what people are saying around me if I try that! It must be a skill, because my boyfriend can focus that way but I sure can’t. My brain even can get tugged away by music with distracting lyrics, let alone people having actual conversations. Doesn’t stop me from writing, though – even in high school I was always able to sneak off somewhere quiet, make good use of study periods, and eventually get a pair of headphones to block out other peoples’ conversations
But anyway, yeah. I relate to a lot of what you’re saying here. I feel like unfortunately a lot of women are told, and believe, that they aren’t allowed to say no to things. Because of this their schedule gets so packed, they don’t have room to do the things they really need to do for their own selves, or the things they really value. Learning how to say “No, I don’t have time to do that for you, because I have to do this for me” is really important, and I think that’s a big part of having “time” to write, or to paint, or to do whatever else it is you need to do to be healthy and happy.
March 20th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
I think it’s often about excuses — covering up fear of failure, or deriving self-worth from how “busy” one is, or whatever.
But I once spent a few days unable to write — in extreme and constant pain, with no sleep, working literally nonstop to care for a sick newborn baby. Some months later, a healthy moneyed childless woman airily announced to me that “no day is so busy you can’t find ten minutes to write”.
Well yes, actually. For me it was a few days, for others it may be a lifetime. I think it’s important to acknowledge that.
And, of course, there’s the matter of access to literacy and writing materials.
Otherwise — I agree. If you want it, you do it. And if you regularly don’t do it, consider the possibility that you don’t want it.
March 21st, 2010 at 11:37 pm
the funny thing i find is that it is easier for me to write when someone is telling me not to or that i have to do something else first
or at the worst times in my life when every thing is crap
but reading is my have to
i’m addicted to the worlds that appear before your eyes something all but my english high school teachers lament as when i find a new series my grades start to drop
as much as i love writing what gives me the greatest thrill is reading others work and helping them expand it
so that’s where i’m headed
March 22nd, 2010 at 8:33 am
Thanks for the reminder. I *can* write in a room full of distractions, but unless it’s during the month of November, I tend to forget that this is something I’m capable of. . .