Writing Away Day
It’s a regular complaint of writers that there just isn’t enough time. But everyone has the same twenty-four hours in the day, so how is it that some people manage to hold down the day job, raise the kids, feed the cats, do the dishes, walk the dog, tidy the garden, clean the car…and still publish a novel, while some of us struggle?
It’s been a mystery to me for years and I think that it all boils down to a couple of things:
Do you really, passionately love to write (never mind publishing, I mean that driven writing that you just can’t hold back because it’s pouring out of you)?
If the answer to this is ‘yes’, you find the time; you subconsciously turn down invitations to dinner, leave the dishes till the morning, test out your poems on the kids over breakfast, dream up the next scene while walking the dog and recite the latest chapter to your cat.
Do you have so many commitments that even the ‘10-minute and 100 words per day’ rule to getting a book written is a struggle?
If the answer to this is ‘yes’ then perhaps a commitment declutter might be in order. You don’t have to say ‘yes’ to everything you’re asked to do. Saying ‘yes’ to some things usually means saying ‘no’ to something else. You have a choice.
Having juggled too many balls in the air for years and years (I’m a mum of six and have always worked outside as well as inside the home), I have finally learned to make sure that I make time to write. Whether I write an article, a poem, another paragraph to the novel I’ve been wanting to write for decades, I have found a way of making the time.
So let me introduce you to the Writing Away Day. I know some writers have been doing it for years, and are telling everyone about it on TikThis and TikThat, but I’m late to the party as usual and have only just started.
My Writing Away Day is that one day per month that I take off work, off chores, off everything else and just write. To be fair, if the weather isn’t great or I’m feeling lazy, I don’t actually leave the house, I barely leave my pyjamas, but what I do is just write. I tend to turn my phone off too, to reduce any possibility of interruptions. Not that I get that many calls, but I am easily distracted and the phone just makes pausing to chat on whatever social app just too easy.
Editing a poem for today’s Writing Away Day
Today I am checking through some poems and editing and revising these and checked through the books I have on sale on Amazon. I have prepared a plan for a collection of short stories that I have been writing for a while now and in just a couple of hours, a set of stories are beginning to take the form of an anthology that may have substance and maybe even something worthwhile to say. I took my notepad and pens, and my tablet, lodged myself at a corner of a cafe and used their wifi till my battery died and I headed back home to carry on writing on my computer. I may only have 10 minutes here or there till my next Away Day but progress is being made and I feel better about my writing already.
It isn’t just about being productive. Being liberated from the constraints of day to day obligations and just giving myself permission to do what I love doing leaves me feeling lit up, uplifted, enthused and my creativity is flowing again. The 10 minute a day rule is great, and I have spells of working that way too, but the Writing Away Day is definitely the way to go for me from now on.
Why don’t you give it a try? It may work for you too.
Me as a child by the beach, reminding me today why I wrote Beyond the Blue