Writers: Finding Time
While the title of this post would also make an excellent title for a sci-fi novel involving time travel and a sad confrontation with the realization that we cannot escape the effects of time, the idea behind this week’s post is to approach the trouble with finding the time to write when you are not yet writing for a living. Consider the time jump from my last post to this one, and look! Here is another post, I have managed to find the time and energy to put something new out there, and you can too.
If you are like me, you can basically only perform one genre of functionality each day. For instance, if I say that I am going to clean on Saturday, that means I am not leaving the house and will be doing all types of cleaning from vacuuming to dishes to laundry to relentlessly scrubbing that spot on the bathroom mirror that is actually a scratch and will never go away. Notice how watching tv or writing isn’t on that list? That’s because those activities do not fit under the functionality genre umbrella of cleaning.
When writing isn’t paying the bills and you have to have a different job, a day at that job often means not much else happens. “Work” is another genre of functionality that renders time off the clock pretty much useless because all our brains are thinking about is work. It’s like being stuck in some sort of limbo or purgatory, a trap where the work you have to do to pay for a home, food, and the occasional treat, becomes indefinite because you can’t find the time to do the writing that needs to be done in order to get paid for it. But that’s where my extended metaphor can actually help.
Productive and unproductive are like fiction and nonfiction. Everyone has a preference, but when someone asks you what genre you like to read, it is likely that they will want you to explain further. What kind of fiction do you like? Are you more of an autobiography or research reader? You aren’t just productive or unproductive, you are work-focused or an avid movie watcher, a neat freak or frequent sleeper. In the same way that we struggle to read outside of our preferred genre, we struggle to act outside of our preferred function. But eventually, you are going to set aside that high fantasy novel or biography and pick up a juicy romance or psychology book. We have got to mix it up, the switch happens spontaneously usually, but sometimes we force ourselves either when it’s our only option or the movie is coming out so you have to read the book first.
We can act outside of the day’s genre when we really want to. In terms of finding time to write, you need to figure out if you are productive or unproductive and make writing a subgenre. If you think productively, writing is just another thing that has to get done, even if you aren’t getting paid for it yet, like cleaning. If you think unproductively, writing is just another thing you can do when the watching tv genre isn’t hitting the spot.
Trust me, I know nothing about this is easy. It’s impossible to change your mindset simply out of sheer will. Like any other habit or genre you want to get into, it takes time. It takes doing it when you don’t even really feel like doing it. As I am writing this, I have to work a 2:30pm to 11pm shift tonight, didn’t wake up until 11am and still haven’t gotten out of bed (yes, I keep my computer that close at all times). Every other time I’ve had this same shift, I just get dressed, eat something, and watch tv until it’s time to go because I don’t know how else to function when “work” is on the to-do list. But I got on my computer, opened the document, and just started typing. Sure, there were many edits and rewrites before uploading, but through all of that mess, I wrote something. Something is better than nothing. And it often leads to something better.
Patience, my friends. But patience doesn’t mean doing nothing while you wait for a muse to move through you. It’s having patience with yourself in knowing that not every word you put on the paper is going to be best-seller material, but it is a step in the right direction.
The next time you’re sitting on the couch all dressed and ready to go to work or the bank or that social event you agreed to attend, fit writing into the genre. Soon enough, it won’t be a matter of finding the time to write, but rather, fighting the urge to cancel all plans so that you can write. I’ll have advice for that side of the scale once I’m back over there. For now, I’m writing again, and that’s what matters.
