Really, Who Has Time to Write?

By Carla Damron www.carladamron.com

Writers get this question all the time, but I tend to think it’s not a matter of finding time, but making time. We are all crazy busy in this life. Family responsibilities, work, etc, etc, are all distractions that will thwart our writing project if we let them. For me, the question is really about how I keep my writing alive while going about the business of living my life. I don’t get to write every day, and if I let too much time pass before returning to a project, it’s almost like having to start over.

Another thing that happens (though I doubt some writers will admit it) is this: we let life keep us from writing. This is more likely to happen when we reach a bumpy part in our process. The story line feels flat. The last scene died an ugly death. We have no clue what should happen next. It feels boring to write so it will be surely bore the reader. Suddenly, vacuuming seems like a GREAT idea, and we always meant to reorganize that closet, and shouldn’t we balance the check book and see if those boots we like are still on sale?

Really, who has time to write?

The relationship with our writing becomes dysfunctional. I’ve broken up with my writing a time or two, but now I understand that weathering these rough patches is important—in fact, it’s critical-- for the success of any writer. What I’d like to offer are a few pointers that might help get your relationship with your writing back on track.

1)      Keep going. Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard that one before. But do it.  Plod, crawl, kick and scream, but keep going forward. If every word sucks, keep going. Sometimes I think these patches are actually necessary; they help us peel back a new layer in our work. We may scramble for days but then suddenly it comes to us—in a flash, in a meeting, in a dream—and we figure out what we were missing. The joy of writing comes back.

2)      Even when you can’t sit down at the computer and don’t have even a few minutes to jot down a paragraph or two, keep your writing with you. Make sure you think about it four or five times during the day. When you have insomnia, ponder a character who has been troubling you. That boring meeting you have to attend? Imagine you’re sitting next to your protagonist. What would he/she whisper to you? What would he/she have to say about what you just read in the morning paper?

3)      If it feels like you’re at a dead halt, take a step back. Print out the manuscript or load it onto a tablet, Nook or Kindle and give it a cover-to-cover read. What stands out as its strength? Where is it faltering? Are you clinging to a storyline that isn’t working, when another is clearly taking focus? Time to regroup!

I have another trick that keeps my project well woven into my life. I send it to my Kindle and have the Kindle read it aloud to me when I’m commuting home from work. This works with the older versions of Kindle that have “text to speech” activated. The voice isn’t perfect, but it does use phrasing, and listening to the words allows me to hear problems like repeated sentence structures or overused words. And, of course, I can hear where the suckage commences, though y’all probably don’t have a problem like that.  Once I get home, I’m usually eager to sit down and get to work, even if just for a half hour. I think this habit has prevented many a divorce between me and my writing projects.

Don’t have time to write? Sorry, but I don’t buy it. Make time. The story is in you and it’s your job to give it life.