A lot of people-writing-books who took my survey were understandably worried about juggling the work that brings in income, family obligations and a time-consuming writing habit.
It’s hard enough to keep work from encroaching on your family or social life, or to balance having kids and keeping the house clean enough that you can move through it and making money. Right? Once you add writing into the mix, you’ve got too many balls in the air and not enough hands (or hours in the day) to catch them all.
Every writer I know—even, maybe especially, the published ones—is working this juggling routine. Up goes the job-ball and down comes the sick-baby ball. Up goes the writing-ball and down comes the broken heater, the enormous you-waiting-at-home window the repairman needs and the equally enormous bill. When you make time for one area, you feel like you are stealing it from another vitally important area. Will your kids end up in therapy? Your boss fire you? Your book suck and never get finished?
One of the problems with the writing is that it’s not as loud as the kids and not as pressing as the monthly paycheck and not as easy as Netflix-ing the entire season of Gray’s Anatomy in one weekend. So it can slip out of the picture. And if its absence left you feeling sane, you might just decide you were not really meant to be a writer.
But then this horrible grumpy feeling comes over you when you aren’t writing. It is not always immediately obvious that this has anything to do with writing. You just feel negative. Down. Slow and sloggy and as if you’ve misplaced something important and can’t remember what.
What you’ve misplaced is writing. You can’t just give it up. Your character, your very constitution, says you have to make a place for it in your over-crowded juggling routine. So now what?
One of the reasons I created the Book Writing World is because we all need an entity that is just on the side of our writing. Friendlier than your glowering boss and quieter than your kids stuck inside on a rainy day, but persistent, even demanding. A world that says, hey, did you write? It matters to us that you write!
It doesn’t have to be the Book Writing World, but if you are going to fit writing into your life, you have to create a demand for it and a support system. In this series of blogs, I am going to respond to your questions from my survey and give you some concrete tactics for making writing a successful part of your life, with less stress and more pleasure. Doesn’t that sound divine?
If you haven’t already, please take my survey. I’d love to hear (and respond to) your questions!
Survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CP9C98S
Do you relate to any of what I’ve written here? Post a comment and let me know!
How well I relate to this. Working on the same book for eight years and I treat it like my least favorite aunt. Then, when if I get to know her (and my book) I end up saying, “Not so bad.”
It is such a struggle to take my writing off that back burner and get with my writing.
Bree
Bree–You put that so well–treating your book like your least favorite aunt! But how great the rewards of getting close to your writing and finding it better than you thought.
Yup – I’ve been thinking much about this (and posted similar personal things on my writing blog) this week. If I am not writing, I am guilt-ridden with an overwhelming self-imposed grudge that I begin hating the things that I did instead of writing, only to perhaps skip writing for something else the next day.
It is a powerful ability to rationalize that you won’t miss just one day of writing and then to later feel guilty about it, all the while rationalizing away the next day.
For me, binge writing and targeted deadlines seem to provide some structure to it, and prod me on towards a finish, even though I (theoretically) would prefer a more steady stream of words on a daily basis. Maybe it’s my procrastination gene that helps me rationalize it all away with the lies of “I work better under pressure” or “I can get to it later.” Realistically, it’s just about owning up to a style of work, I guess, since the guilt-driven binge writing does WORK, it’s just what I theoretically would not PREFER, though I have never been consistent enough at “daily writing” or even more structured writing for an adequate comparison.
Thanks for the thoughts.
Cameron–Thanks for your thoughts. I think you’ll like the video I’ll be posting in a day or two about how to maximize YOUR PROCESS for writing a book.
How well I relate to this. Working on the same book for eight years and I treat it like my least favorite aunt. Then, when if I get to know her (and my book) I end up saying, “Not so bad.”
It is such a struggle to take my writing off that back burner and get with my writing.
Bree
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Yes, Amy–Bree has a way with words. And let us remember that great books often do take a long time. I’m collecting a list of stories about prize-winning and wonderful books that took years and years and years . . .
Yes, of course, this is so resonant. And I know it to be true – the grumpy, sloggy, down feeling that tells me I’m not living up to my potential, not saying what needs to be said, not processing the world through writing. And yet, the colossal mountain in front of me, the one that says “you can’t climb me, you don’t have the tools, you’re not toned, you will slip” it is forboding.
There’s a way that not writing makes me a little saner, and a little more insane. It’s a mixed bag. I miss the discipline of having to write (my own “have” of course), and yet, I’m really not sure how to jump back into my book.
I opted out of the daily writing class this time around too – why? Because some nights I’d literally be nodding off at the computer, or I’d be desperate for sleep, and sleep fitfully, knowing I had to get up to write – at 2 am or 3 am. I would yell at my family “I’ve GOT TO WRITE!” or “Mama is busy!” I didn’t like that about me. I don’t like how little time I have and how fast it goes.
But therein lies the imperative. Time is fleeting. I must write.
Sigh – I feel tired now. I feel haphazard. I want someone else to make me a plan that I will follow diligently until the book is done.
Your new site looks fabulous, btw.
Thanks, Jenny. You will find the balance–and sometimes it will just be the kind of balance that comes from swinging back and forth, rather than from some Zen stillness that is generally far removed from motherhood!
Me, I’ve been getting lots of psychosomatic neck/back/leg/throbbing-in-my-eye pain. Sometimes the cramping even pulls on my tongue — whoever thought you could taste pain? You can, believe me. It woke me up, horribly, this morning. So I lay there, from 6 to 7, wondering what’s going on this time and then zap! It hit me: I got enough sleep, for a change so, the answer was: I was supposed to be writing. And goddarn it, after the shower and the exercise, during tea, but before dishes and walking the dog, I wrote. For 40 minutes! First time in many days, but so necessary, like the air I was breathing. I keep thinking that if I could just stand my ground here, in writing, I’d get somewhere. I think it will happen. I’ll get a shape of things, not just sheets of paper. Right away, before the shower, even, I forgot about my pain, or maybe my pain forgot about me. It was a happy day today. All day. Unbelievable. I saw things differently, somehow.
Melanie Lee–Yes! Exactly. It’s so good to hear from you. I hope you are on the Book Writing World mailing list, because there will be some gorgeous opportunities to support your writing coming up soon, too. Meanwhile, keep finding those patches of time. Bravo!
Sorry to bother you, Elizabeth, but I’m having problems logging in. I don’t remember my passowrd, and when I try to change it, I get a message saying that the website doesn’t recognize either my name or my e-mail address. When I try to re-register, it verifies that I’m already a member. Could you please help?
Thanks.
Melanie Lee–No bother. The BWW is not open to the public yet. But the blog and videos are free and available. There are more videos about the writing process at http://bookwritingsecrets.com . . . The best thing to do is to sign up for the BWW mailing list for notification about free content and to be sure you know when the doors to the BWW open . . . We have some great, limited-enrollment classes starting in June . . . Thanks so much!
(By the way, this is Elizabeth posting under the auspices of Angie. :))