The Write Life
When I was young, I dreamed of being a writer. I loved the idea of creating stories. Stories about strong, interesting, loving women who had to endure and overcome. I wanted to write about love and life. I wanted my stories to be set in interesting places and times. I so desired to dive into the hearts and minds of characters to shed light on the pains and struggles in lives of my readers.
For me reading has never been an escape but an expansion of who I am and the world around me.
In many ways reading and writing stories saved me. Reading offered me a chance to discover that I wasn’t alone in the world, that other people had rich inner lives as well as I did. And though, most of the books I read didn’t always have a “happy” ending, they offered my insight and depth of heart.
I wanted literature in my life, and I wanted to be one of the ones who created it, wrote it for others.
There are hundreds of reasons not to sit down and write or so it seems. And though most writers and artists agree that the time they write is never time waisted, it is one of the main reason writers don’t sit down to write.
We all are given the same number of hours in the day. Of course, some of us have more responsibilities than others. But if writing is on the top four of your priorities, I believe you can find time to write. The pages you complete, or even the number of books might change depending on your responsibilities but taking time out of your day to produce work, whatever that work may be, is doable.
One of my all-time favorite writers is Willian Faulkner. He won a Nobel Prize for Literature and twice the Pulitzer Price for Literature. He says, ““I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o'clock every morning.”
What he is saying, I believe is I sit down every morning at 9 in the morning. And then the inspiration comes. I sit down and get to work.
Sometimes the sitting down feels like the hardest part. The saying “yes” to this passion, this dream.
Like Faulkner, Stephen King believes in the making time to write. He writes, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get to work,” Stephen King.
Sit down with a calendar.
Map out your schedules.
Decide your goal for writing--for example, say you want to write for 30 minutes four times a week.
Decide when you work the most efficiently, for me this is first thing in the morning. Sometimes I can get a bit of work accomplished in evening.
Pencil this commitment in as if it were a doctor’s appointment, a meeting at work. Do your best to stay to this schedule.
Be kind to yourself on the days you need to reschedule this writing time.
Remember to congratulate yourself when you have accomplished a goal.
Writing comes from desire, a passion. I believe we are born with that purpose, but it is up to us to become writers.
Join my FREE class on writing and finding time to write here.