Tag: fitting in writing

Writing on the Tough Days

Motivation and the Writing Life

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

A few weeks ago I’d read an interesting post from Cathy C. Hall about the danger of waiting for ‘the perfect time to write.’   She gives examples of likely ‘perfect time’ scenarios, which are basically anytime but now.  Waiting until life is less-challenging.

As Cathy puts it:

There is no such thing as the perfect time for writing. There will always be something or someone coming along to give us a perfectly good reason not to write. And before you know it, it’s been weeks, months, years, since you’ve written much at all.

Waiting for the perfect time (or, at least, a better time) to write may seem to have an easy solution: prioritize your writing.  But that’s only part of it.Continue reading

Time to Write

Motivation and the Writing Life

Alarm clock sits on a table to the left of the frame and the post title, "Time to Write' is superimposed on the right.

by Nancy Christie, @NChristie_OH

When I was thinking about what topic to explore for this guest post, three words kept coming into my mind: “time to write.”

Maybe it was because, overloaded with pre-publication marketing work for my upcoming book, Rut-Busting Book for Writers, I kept “robbing Peter to pay Paul”—stealing the small amount of time I had dedicated each day to fiction writing (my passion) to complete all those promotional tasks on my To-Do list.

Nancy Christie's book "Rut-Busting Book for Writers."

Or maybe it was because despite knowing what I wanted to focus on once my writing book was safely “birthed”—preparing my second short story collection for publication—I kept finding my mind returning to a novel idea that was just “a gleam in its mother’s eye.” And then of course there were the client projects (my income source) whose deadlines were fast approaching.

Every day, I am very conscious of the tick-tick-tick that indicated that time is passing while the items on my task list remain uncompleted. Like so many writers and authors I interviewed for my book, it wasn’t that there was a shortage of ideas or projects I wanted to pursue. It was more a time shortage, leaving me feeling like the White Rabbit who kept checking his pocket watch and muttering, “so little time, so much to do.”

So how do we handle it, given that, for many of us, writing is both a creative calling and a business? How do we make time for writing? And is it just about literal “time” or do we also have to think about the other meaning of “time to write”: whether now is the time for us to begin (or return to) writing?Continue reading

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