“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.” ―William Hutchison Murray
One time my sister and a friend were having a really hard time scheduling a lunch date. At this time one had a conflict, at that time another had prior plans. Finally they decided to have lunch together every Wednesday. This solved the problem!
It may be counter-intuitive or deeply known to you by now—but routine trumps just about everything for making something happen.
Finding your writing time slipping around, shrinking, disappearing? Write every day. Dailiness is the direction of both passion and commitment. When you get involved with someone romantically, there’s usually a flurry of dailiness in the heady beginning and an eventual dailiness in the lap of commitment; isn’t there?
Are you ready to move in with your writing? To “get serious”? To work out who is going to do the dishes? To do each other’s laundry?
This kind of commitment is not romantic, but it is deep. You show up for your writing and it will show up for you. You give it its special time, its place in your day, and you will know that the ideas that whisper to you as you walk or work or drive will find an outlet when you sit down to put words on the page—every day.
You decide to do it. You make time even though you don’t have time. You get up early to write or you stay up late or you sneak off at your lunch hour for that rendezvous. The headiness wears—not off, but in, deepens into intimacy, productivity, creativity. A writing life.
I don’t really know what it means to “be a writer,” but I do know what it feels like to get up at 5 a.m. while the sky is still dark and the kids are still asleep and write.
What commitment are you making to your writing this summer? What holds you back? What spurs you on?
After fighting myself, I have finally come to accept that my best writing time is between 10 and 12 at night. This is the only time that I don’t have other things I want to be doing (accept maybe some bad tv). With my partner sleeping curled up next to my very ergonomically correct air desk and my pups relaxing on the bed it I feel relaxed which always helps my writing.
It’s my anxiety about having other people read my writing that holds me back. I have, however, joined a writing group this summer so I am forced into having others read my writing. I’m scared and excited at the same time.
This reminds me of my Wednesday commitment. I worked with a therapist at least a year before I hit upon my “Wednesday writing day.” . I’d take myself off to a place away from home and spend the day writing. I finished my book with those Wednesdays. Today I know that if I’m not connected with the writing world and have place holders in my week, I’m probably not doing much writing.
Really it is a date with myself and I have to honor that or I’m lost.