Write On Schedule

When I was a little girl, I loved to make daily schedules for myself.  I got the idea from a book (where else?)  called "Healthy Living for Boys and Girls," and I clearly recall its mottled green cover with red script lettering.  The first chapter recommended sticking to a daily schedule, advising that regularity was beneficial to the growing body and the mind.  The book even had sample schedules for a typical day, so I copied it down in my round grade school handwriting and posted it on the wall above my desk.  It went something like this: 8:00 a.m -Get up

8:05 a.m. - Use the bathroom, wash hands and face

8:15 a.m. - Eat breakfast

8:30 a.m. - Brush teeth and comb hair

8:35 a.m. - Get dressed for school

8:45 a.m. Leave for school

It went on in this quite rigid vein, with prescribed times throughout the day for play, homework, and family time.   Naturally, I soon fell off the schedule wagon, as it were, and reverted back to my normal, more relaxed way of doing things.  But there's something about schedules that still appeals to me.  I suppose it's the part of me that prefers my life to be neat and orderly, hoping that if I impose some schedule on it, then I can make it so. 

In terms of my writing life, I also crave a schedule.  I'd love to set aside a certain time every day when I could sit down and write.  Some writers swear that's the only way to do it.  "You sit down every day at approximately the same time," Ann Lamott says.  "This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively." (Bird By Bird)  Julia Cameron agrees.  "I write daily," she says.  "I get up to write the same way I go out to the barn and toss hay to the horses.  My creative horses demand the same care.  They, too, must be fed, and in a timely fashion, and that is why I write first thing in the morning." (The Right to Write)

Admittedly, I haven's always been too successful in slotting writing time into my daily life.  Partly, it's my own fault, for letting other things take priority.  On work days, I'm out of the house by 8:30, and don't get home until 5:00.  There are dogs to walk, the husband and I to feed, and always emails to answer... Somehow, it feels indulgent to set aside time for myself within the framework of other more pressing responsibilities.

But setting aside a certain time of day to write, helps acknowledge the importance of writing in our lives.  It becomes a necessary activity for which we make time within our personal schedule, amdist the myriad of responsibilities to family, work, and the world.  Scheduling writing time is more than being obsessive compulsive - it's a way of telling ourselves and the world that our writing practice is valuable and worth the effort.  "Writing, the creative effort, the use of the imagination, should come first, at least for some part of every day of your life," states Brenda Ueland.  (If You Want To Write) 

However, as I learned back in fifth grade, a schedule that is too rigid simply invites non-compliance. So I try to give myself some breathing room.  I've committed to writing every day,  but the time of day and the amount of time I can devote to writing tends to fluctuate.  Monday's and Friday's  are my days off, so they're big writing days for me.  I get up at my regular time, have coffee and read, then do morning pages.  Some laundry goes in, while the dogs and I go out to walk.  After that, it's come home and sit down to write - first the week's post for Sunday Salon, or Write On Wednesday,  followed by some work on another writing project, such as a short story or essay.  After a lunch break, I often return to the keyboard, and find myself writing well into the afternoon. 

I agree with Natalie Goldberg when she says that "in order to improve your writing, you have to practice just like any other sport."  But I also see the wisdom in the rest of her advice.  "Don't be dutiful and make it into a blind routine. Don't set up a system-'I have to write every day'- and then just numbly do it." (Writing Down the Bones) 

I think there must be a balance between commitment to a writing practice, and simple adherence to an arbitrary time table.  Otherwise, writing becomes just another on a list of mundane chores - like "washing face and combing hair."  And writing is so much more than that, isn't it?

So, how about you?  How does writing fit into your daily life?  What's your ideal time to write, and why? Do you "write on schedule" or "when the spirit moves you"?

You can write a post on your blog, leaving a comment with a link, or simply leave your complete response in the comments section.  Write On Wednesday is open all week, in case you need some time to fit writing into your schedule   *smiles*

 

 

Hello Again

Amazing.  An entire week has gone by without a word from me on this page. What have I been doing with myself? 

Kind of you to ask.

I've just returned from a weekend jaunt to Columbus, Ohio, to attend the wedding one of my former students.  When I started working with high school students in 1993, I never imagined that my involvement in their lives would one day extend to attending events like their weddings. (And funerals, too, but that's another story.)

But it has.

Laura was one of those girls who had it all together in high school, and now, 11 years post graduation, she hasn't changed one bit.  Her wedding was picture perfect, every last detail (right down to the hand packed goodie bags waiting at the hotel for her guests) was perfectly orchestrated.  She even managed to keep threatened rain showers at bay long enough for all the guests to get to the reception...and than have the rain end just at 11 p.m. when the festivities began to wind down.

I love weddings, with their bright shiny hope and promise, their tradition and ceremony.  This one was a nice balance of style and taste, without being ostentatious or overdone.  It was a bit subdued by modern standards, and my friend and I were discussing this on the way home. 

"Well," I remarked to Pat (who has been separated from her husband for almost 20 years), "it doesn't take a million dollar wedding to make a million dollar marriage."

"That's for sure," she agreed.

I'm sure we were both thinking about the young man who had ridden with us to the wedding, a classmate of Laura's (in fact, her first love) who just three weeks ago had signed divorce papers.  Pat and I attended his wedding too, back in 2004.  We watched he and his lovely bride exchange vows under a gazebo in the warm glow of a Florida sunset, enjoyed seeing them dancing the night away, gleeful and full of hope. In fact, that wedding was the last time  we saw Jeff, another of their classmates, a brilliant man who took his life in January of 2006.

Young people, none of them yet 30 years of age, and they've already experienced some of life's most tumultuous moments - marriage, divorce, death - it doesn't get more elemental than that.

It makes me thankful for the relatively slow trajectory I've traveled on life's pathway. For the past three decades, I've lived in the same home with the same man, where we raised a healthy child who now has a successful life of his own.

And given all the uncertainty in this world, that's worth about a million dollars to me.

Need A Jump?

Last month we were at our home in Florida for a few days, and came out of a shopping center to discover our car battery was dead.  Apparently my husband had been sitting in the car listening to the radio with the engine in auxillary mode, which drained what was left of the charge on the car's already failing battery.  Jim carries jumper cables (it's a 10 year old sports car, rarely driven), and he flagged down a nice young man who did his best to jump start the car.  No go.  Reluctantly, Jim called our son away from his work, and he willingly drove over.  They tried jumpstarting it a few more times, without success.  So we had the car towed to the service station, certain there was somthing more seriously awry - a faulty starter perhaps.  The next morning our mechanic called with the news that he had installed a new battery and the car was good as new.  Why hadn't it responded to all those electrical jump starts?  Sometimes, the mechanic told us, the bigger sports car engines just won't respond to the paltry charge provided by a "normal" car.

I don't know whether my brain can be compared to the 400 cubic inch V-8 in our old Trans Am, but for the past few days I've been feeling it was in desperate need of a jump start.  "My thoughts are cranky and resistant," writes Julia Cameron.  "I feel sluggish and irritable.  My body of information feels like that of an out-of-shape athlete. I do not want to write." (The Right to Write)

Every writer's muse occasionally behaves like a recalcitrant two year old - the one who lays down on the floor screaming, "No! I won't! And you can't make me!"  My first thought (with the muse and the two year old) is to respond in kind.  "Oh yes, you will write today, and it better be darn good!"

But wisdom tells us this approach will likely backfire.  Good things rarely come from brute force, do they?  Modern theory advises that the wiser approach with a toddler is to stand back quietly and wait for the tantrum to run its course, without lowering yourself to the child's level. Then firmly and quietly take the wild one by the hand and move them toward your goal. 

Sometimes, when the words don't come, I start to panic, don't you?  As we did with the car, I jump to the conclusion that something is seriously wrong.   It's all over, I tell myself.  I'll never write another word again.  It was just a fling, a fleeting love affair with the page, and now I'm finished. 

 "Try to calm down, get quiet, breathe, and listen," advises Ann Lamott, speaking to writers in Bird By Bird.  "You get your confidence and inspiration back by trusting yourself, by being militantly on your own side.  You get your intuition back when you stop the chattering of the rational mind." 

Certainly the larger the drain on my "writing mind" from outside sources, the more likely it is to stall completely.  Pressure from work or family, worry about health or finances, these are the things that naturally curb a writer's imagination and enthusiasm for the process of getting words onto the page.  Ironically, these are also the times when writing's healing power can be most valuable, when coming to the page with worries and concerns can rejuvenate the spirit and even illuminate possible solutions to those pressing concerns.

Because I don't write "for a living," it's easy to indulge these periods of creative lethargy.  So what, I finally say in exasperation.  Who cares whether I write anything or not?  And off I go to the television, bag of chips in hand.

Of course, that won't do my writing mind (or my hips!) the least bit of good.  Exercising the mind is a lot like exercising the body - sometimes, you simply have to "just do it," whether you "feel like it" or not.  "You must attend to your work daily," writes Barbara De Marco. (Pen On Fire) "It takes sheer persistence...and stamina to heft the burden of fear...as you make your way along the path to being a writer." 

Sometimes it's a simple as just putting a  few words on paper.  Sometimes, reading good writing - a favorite author or poet - provides the impetus to create.  Physical activity - a walk in the park, a swim, whatever revs your heart rate might send a spark to ignite the muse. 

So, how about you?   Do you ever feel the need to jump start your writing? What drains the energy from your "writing mind"?  What do you do when your creative battery dies? 

You can write a post on your blog, leaving a comment with a link, or simply leave your complete response in the comments section.  Write On Wednesday is open all week, in case you need some time to get your writing mind in gear <smiles>

A Loss For Words

I'm curiously at a loss for words this week, which is ironic given the theme of my latest project.  And perhaps I should save this post for Write On Wednesday, especially given the way I'm feeling right now, which is virtually inspiration-less. But I'm sitting here at my dining room table, the window pushed open full tilt, the backyard grass dappled with shadows from the red maple tree, the one I'll never cut down no matter how dangerously close to the house it grows, and I hear the cicadas for the first time this summer.  I usually connect them with really hot weather, that murderous, relentless heat which sometimes comes late in July and August, the kind of weather that always surprises Michiganders, offends us I think, since we're used to the general temperance of this state's climate in summer.  But they're out there singing already, or whatever it is cicadas do, that incessant buzz which crescendos to a fever pitch before it stops, suddently, as if someone has clamped a lid on it. 

 I sit, and stare, chin propped on my hand, and let the sound of cicadas wash over me.  I watch a butterfly flit merrily to and fro in the tall grass of the orchard, and notice a friend join him as they swoop easily among the weeds.  My eyes are drawn upward, past the stand of pines whose tips are completely invisible, nearly tall enough to poke the fat bellies of those cumulus clouds stalled overhead, and out beyond the first fence toward the poplar tree, whose branches ripple like waves in the azure sky.  Their soughing reaches the house, a gentle shush of sound, whose wake sets my wind chimes in motion, their alto notes a gentle a-minor chord progression, a monkish call to worship from some early age.

I am calmed, and soothed, and eased.

So, who needs words?

Write On Wednesday

This week Write On Wendesday asks (read the entire prompt here): Are you ever assailed with self doubt about your writing ability, or about the reasons for writing at all?  Do you “follow yourself around nagging and suggesting and complaining”? What are some of the negative things your Editor tells you?  What could your Editor say to be more encouraging?   How do you encourage yourself to keep practicing the craft of writing?

If you've been reading this blog of mine for long, you'll know I'm always feeling behind the eight ball with regard to time - having enough of it to go 'round and complete all the things on my "to do" list.  Work responsibilities, music rehearsals and performances, elder care...fitting in time with husband, friends...getting the household chores done...ad infinitum.

So why am I spending so much time writing?  Or thinking about writing? Or doing research for writing?  Or writing about writing?  nags the complaining voice that dogs my steps.  Look at all the time you're wasting.  It's not as if you were getting paid for it!

Ah ha!  There's the most persistent of the nagging thoughts, especially these days when money is at such a premium in my house.  How can I justify spending so much time in an activity that provides no monetary recompense?  Huh?  How can I?

As much as my Puritan forefathers would deny it, I believe in the value of activites which are self fulfilling and creative, activities that enrich the spirit and the mind- whether or not they enrich the pocket book.  Certainly writing does that for me.  Since I've been writing regularly, I feel my thoughts expanding and my confidence growing. I see myself looking at the world throught a different lens, more aware of its natural beauty, while increasing my interest in the relationships between people and the space they occupy.  I'm excited by these changes.  They multiply upon themselves, these rewards of writing, and I've come to consider my writing practice a good investment in self development.   

I must remind myself of that, and often, especially when that nagging voice starts whining in my ear.  But when I sit down to write, when I allow words to tumble out of my head and onto the page, the sensations of relief, excitement, and satisfaction, encourage my heart (and pen!) to keep writing.