Perseverance
It’s July. Technically the fifth or sixth week of summer break for instructors and students not involved in summer classes. But for all intents and purposes, my summer break has barely begun. I’ve done no writing. Except for this past week, I’ve simply been too busy with things that are, truly, more important than finding a poem or fiddling with a story.
And here I am with nothing to say on the art and business of writing. It’s July. I’m heat-drained and testy. I have an hour a day to myself; an hour to watch a show or read or shower or write. I have a post due. I find myself wanting to quit. Why spend the hour telling other people about writing? Why wrestle with the words when there’s no real action?
Because I joined this group to encourage myself – and through the reality of deadline, demand of others – to make the time to write. Because I really do want to be part of the writing community in some small fashion. It’s small, my part in this community. It’s merely a start. I suspect several of us have started this way, with a step that froze in place like a walk caught in ice.
I find myself wanting to quit. I feel I’m stuck in place. But I suspect I’m just caught in time, waiting for things to shift a bit, the world to tilt just enough that the ice melts and the next step placed.
I think we all feel like this at one time or another. Some of us feel like this a lot of the time.
Sometimes deadlines are the perfect thing to get us going again after a slump. Sometimes what it takes is slogging through the doldrums of the summer heat, when our creativity looks and feels as barren as the most desolate desert. Sometimes it takes taking a step back and just putting words — any words — onto a page (any page).
Sometimes it takes talking to other writers to find out what they do in these situations.
One of my tricks for writing when I have limited time has been to sneak a few minutes here, a few minutes there. I’m sitting here, still at work at 8:36 pm (I started at 7:03 am). I’ve actually got my own post brewing in my mind as my deadline is coming up as well and I will probably start to write it while I get some long-running process started here. It’s not a perfect solution, especially since I prefer to start — and finish — a piece in one sitting. At times like these, though, that may not be an option.
I hope you find the ice melting soon and that it reveals some fantastic next steps on your writing journey.
Why do you have only one hour a day to write?
Rob & Jacqui,
I’m very embarrassed at catching this weeks late. I forgot to put the publication date of this one in my calendar & so didn’t look for responses.
Rob, yes to all you wrote. I would have my stories brewing while I worked, too, but it doesn’t happen like that now. As a new teacher, I don’t have fall-back activities if something doesn’t work, so most of the brewing time in my head gets taken up by figuring out how to approach a teaching challenge.
Jodi — I had a teaching-related project I needed to do, and that took all the time that I wasn’t with my 3-year-old. Plus, for two-weeks it was just me and my 3-year-old. So my only time to do my own thing (like creative writing, showering, or being brainless) was the hour between when he went to bed and when I went to bed. When it’s not just me and the 3-year-old, there are days I don’t get that hour to myself at all — but I do get a shower every morning. Trade-offs, right?