Write On Wednesday - It's All in the Timing

We are traditionally rather proud of ourselves for having slipped creative work in there between the domestic chores and obligations. I'm not sure we deserve such big A-pluses for that.

Toni Morrison

As I look back through my morning pages over the past several months and re-read my blog posts, there is one theme that recurs over and over again - my lack of time. I'm well aware that I try to pack too many activities and responsibilities in my day, but what can I do? All these things - work, household chores, helping out my mom and caring for my mother in law, tending the dogs, rehearsals, practicing, and of course, reading and writing- are things that I either need to do or love to do.

When I started writing on a regular basis last March, my daily schedule was already quite full. I had no idea that my writing would become a habit forming hobby! Now, I'm having a hard time getting everything done and still having time left to write. So I usually end up doing just what Toni Morrison describes - slipping creative work in between chores and obligations. And yes, actually I am pretty proud that I managed to complete NaNoWriMo and write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, while still going to work, preparing for a couple of concerts, and juggling my family responsibilities. And I'm amazed at the women out there who finished their novels while adding the care of small children in the mix. I think we do deserve A pluses for that!

But it isn't only women who face this dilemma. In his book, On Writing, Stephen King talks about the early days of his career when he honed his writing skills while teaching high school and working in an industrial laundry. He scribbled short stories for "men's magazine's" while waiting for huge loads of hospital linens to dry, and then went home to his wife and two kids in their "double wide trailer" to write some more.

In her book, Pen on Fire-A Busy Woman's Guide to Igniting the Writer Within, and also on her blog, Barbara DeMarco addresses this dilemma - how do we fit writing into lives that are already too full? DeMarco advises us to "set the timer" for 15 minutes everyday. She provides lots of writing prompts and ideas for those who might be fearful of the blank page. In just 15 minutes a day, she says, you can flex your writing muscles and start unearthing the "writer within."

But how about those of us who want more than 15 minutes? Where does it come from?

While doing NaNoWriMo, I was "stealing" time all over the place - I neglected the laundry so long, I think we were down to our last clean pairs of socks before I finally typed "the end"!

I stayed up late, got up early, and said little more than "good morning" and "good night" to my husband for the duration of November. Obviously, I couldn't keep up that kind of pace on a regular basis. But it did make me realize how much time I could devote to writing - if I had it, that is!

There is one practice I retained from that experience that's helping me nourish my writing habit. I've continued getting up about an hour earlier than I used to. That early morning time, when the rest of the household is blissfully sleeping, gives me a nice period of quiet time to read, write, and reflect. It satisfies my writing urge, and gets my day started on the "write" foot!

Where do you find time to write? And what's your favorite "writing time" of day?

Write On Wednesday

Since I started this blogging adventure, and especially since participating in NaNoWriMo, I've been building my library of books on the craft of writing. I love thinking of writing as a craft -something that can be molded using the proper tools and process. In the spirit of practicing the craft, I'm declaring "Write On Wednesday's" here at the Byline. It's a day dedicated to whatever I'm thinking about writing in general, and my own writing in particular. Recently, I've been reading Write Away, by Elizabeth George. Toward the end of the book, she addresses questions she's often asked in her personal appearances. One of these is "What's a typical day like for you?" What interested me about George's description of her day was the amount of time she spent on "writer's warm ups," I call them. Similar to the way a musician runs scales and arpeggios before diving into a Concerto, George reads for about 15 minutes in a "great piece of literature," noting that while writing a recent novel, she was concurrently reading Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen. She then turns to her Journal of Novel for the last novel she wrote (she keeps an ongoing journal during the time she is writing each of her novels)and reads an entry. After reading this entry, to remind herself that "whatever she's going through now, she's been through before," she then creates a new entry in the journal she's keeping for her current book. After all this prep work is done, she's ready to work on the novel at hand.

I'm fascinated with reading about the "daily life of a writer," and I love reading their diaries (my copy of Virginia Woolf's A Writer's Diary is filled with dog-eared pages and post-it notes.) Unfortunately, like most of us for whom writing is not a full time profession, my time at the keyboard is limited to the 20 or 30 minutes a day I've managed to steal from my office job and my family responsibilities. But if I could fashion my days in terms of writing being my main occupation (oh, what luxury!), they might go something like this:

Get up about 6:00, have coffee (some things must never change!) and spend about 30 minutes reading my current novel. Then write morning pages (a warm up exercise!) and spend some time in morning meditation-I've been trying to do this for 10 minutes on a regular basis, and sometimes I'm able focus my busy brain that long, and sometimes I'm not! Exercise would follow - bike riding, or dog walking or both. I think the combination of getting outdoors and moving the body early in the day is not only healthy, but provides creative inspiration as well.

By now, I'm ready to get to work at the keyboard, so I'd head off into my well appointed home office (fodder for another fantasy post!) I would spend some time reading/studying a book on writing, perhaps do a freewriting exercise for about 15 minutes, and then settle in to work on my next bestseller! After completing my requisite five pages before noon, I'd have the remainder of the day free to enjoy lunch with friends, take in a movie or museum exhibit, indulge in another creative hobby like music or photography, or just sit in a cafe and people watch, taking notes for interesting characters that might later appear in my novels.

Well, that was fun. How about you? If you were living the writer's life, what would your day be like?