Making Time, Making Energy

[lilithsaintcrow]

Writing takes emotional and physical energy. And time.

This means you have to prioritize time and energy if writing is something you want to do. One of the biggest mistakes I see novice or unpublished (not necessarily the same thing!) writers committing is trying to fit writing in the same way you fit in bathroom breaks. Or not quite, because writing doesn’t have the same biological urgency a full bladder does. (At least, not for most people.)

Plenty of novices/unpublished writers get to the end of their day job, go home, deal with Home Stuff, and find themselves staring at a blank screen. Then they panic, because the words don’t come flying out. The negative self-talk starts.

I can’t do this. I’m a loser. I’ll never get published. This is too hard.

And before you know it, they stop writing, or they get frustrated and spend their limited energy bitching, or they end up surfing the Internet. (Not that I’ve ever, um, personally…oh look! Shiny object! Look!)

Julia Cameron, in The Artist’s Way, talks about “filling the well”. Creating stuff takes energy, you need to build up a store of that energy. It’s the same principle Judith Beck talks about when she says you have to set aside priority and energy for lifestyle changes. “If you had to make time for a lifesaving medical procedure three times a day, you would.”

I often talk about making writing a priority. It needs to be important enough to you that you can arrange some bits of your life to make sure you have the energy and time to Do It.

Dr. Beck suggests making three columns on a piece of paper: necessary, highly desirable, and desirable activities. Then you list the things that you do on a daily basis–if you spend time doing it, write it down on a separate sheet. Then go through, one by one, and figure out how important each one is to you. Activities that are “necessary” get first priority, activities that are “highly desirable” need to be examined to see just how desirable they REALLY are. Activities that are merely “desirable” can be scaled back.

Then, list the hours of the day, from the time you get up from the time you go to bed, on another sheet of paper. Work out a schedule that gives you time for all the necessary things. You can add some highly desirable things too. Don’t be afraid to erase and change things around.

I know a lot of people don’t have the luxury of having writing be their Day Job. I know a lot of people hold down two jobs and raise kids. I know this isn’t really as simple as I’m making it sound. The point here is not “you’re weak for not scheduling your time right.” The point here is “YOU DESERVE TO DO THINGS THAT MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD.” If writing is one of those things, and writing for publication is your goal, then you need to shift some other things–like Internet surfing or what-have-you–to make room and energy for it. And you have the absolute right to say, “I need some time to myself to make these things happen.”

I often say that a kitchen timer is a writer’s best friend. I’ve often set mine and told everyone in my house, “When that rings, you can have my attention again. In the meantime, unless someone’s bleeding or dying, leave me be.” And I stuck to that. I successfully enforced that boundary because I had to–if I didn’t make deadline, I wouldn’t get paid, and my kids wouldn’t eat. That was a hell of a motivation.

As I’m learning to set other boundaries (it’s taken me a while, but better late than never, right?) I’m finding out that making time for writing is a skill I have to constantly practice. I get distracted by People Who Neeeeeeeed Me, or by shiny things, or by things that aren’t precisely a priority but I get wrapped around the axle about anyway. I have to constantly remind myself that sitting down for the words, making time and energy so I can do these things, is non-negotiable. So, take heart: it’s not the sort of skill you get once and then forget about. It’s a constant process, and you can start taking steps toward it at any time. You can refine it at any time, add to it, find out new and better ways to make it work for you.

All right, dear Reader, now we get to the question part of today’s post. How do you make time for writing or other Important Stuff? What works for you? I’m always on the lookout for new strategies, and this is the sort of information that makes more happiness the more it’s shared. So what do you do? Don’t be shy, tell me.

After all, I need all the help I can get.

Posted from A Fire of Reason. You can also comment there.