A couple of days ago, I spent the afternoon working on a personal essay. I had written a draft of it back in January and have spent the last few months mulling over the feedback I received on it, waiting until I had some time to work on it and develop it further.
Justifying the Time
Time? No. It’s not just about time. It’s about justifying the time. I have deadlines. I have writing/editing to do as part of work, part of my business. I have a lengthy critical essay to write as part of the graduation requirements for my MFA program. Then, there’s my thesis, on which I still have revision work to do. There are other reading and writing assignments I have to complete in preparation for my MFA residency in July. Then, there’s . . . well . . . life. Laundry. Food. Dog. Family. Appointments. There’s general well-being and maintenance. All the things.
It’s hard to justify taking an afternoon to work on an essay that doesn’t have to be written, an essay for which there is no set deadline. But it’s more than that, too. It’s not just that I spent several hours working on the essay; it’s that I’ll eventually need to spend several more hours—and then several more—to continue working on it—revising it, editing it. Preparing it for publication somewhere. Again: all the things. To be sure, writing often takes a lot longer than one expects it to. And then there’s the other side of justification to oneself, which is rationalization to others. If you have a partner and/or children, you likely have additional responsibilities. Additional responsibilities often mean additional guilt, that guilt stemming from those partners or family members who may not understand how important it is to carve out space and time for writing.
And Energy
Space and time? It’s not just space and time. It’s energy, too. Writing is exhausting. All writing is. With academic writing, you have the research and reading and synthesis—not just the writing. With personal essays or memoirs, there’s emotional exhaustion (and often research as well). With fiction, there’s creative exhaustion, sometimes just at the subjectivity of it all. And, again, there’s often research involved, too. In any kind of writing, a person might write for a few hours and be worn out in ways that non-writers may not understand or appreciate.
So, forget writer’s block in the usual sense (that can be a whole other kind of exhaustion!). Sometimes the frustration is that you have lots of ideas, but you feel as though you are being blocked as a writer because you just can’t carve out the time for putting those ideas on paper (or computer).
If you’re reading this post and nodding your head in agreement and hoping that I’m going to give you some answers, I’m sorry–I don’t have the answers. (I wish I did!) But I will offer some encouragement and possible strategies (that may or may not work). (I don’t want to give you any false hope!)
Sometimes you just need to be “selfish” and create writing time and space for yourself. I put selfish in quotes because I don’t think it’s actually being selfish (unless it gets taken to an extreme). A lot of people find it helpful to give themselves a certain block of time to write each day, an hour maybe, first thing in the morning, before other family members are even awake. I’m not one of those people. In fact, sometimes I go for a few days without doing any of my own writing, but then I might have a run of several productive days. I don’t want to say that I wait for inspiration to strike (I have deadlines after all!), but I don’t usually force it (unless I’m right up against an aforementioned deadline). That said, if you’re one of those people who is able to successfully set aside a block of time each day to write, by all means, keep doing it! But once a week can work just as well.
Both time and space are individual. For me, “space” is almost more important than time. Time is always going to be a restricted commodity. There will never be enough of it, especially for writing. To that end, I focus on the space in which I write. My most productive writing is when I’m away from my house—away from domestic responsibilities and distractions. In fact, typing on my laptop in a coffee house, it often seems like time slows down and I’m in a trance-like state. It can be amazing (and refreshing!) to see I’ve written 1,500 words in only a small amount of time.
It’s not selfish to carve out this space and time. Though many people might consider writing a “hobby,” it’s not necessarily akin to reading, watching football, going for a run, or going to the movies. It can be, but those are hobbies that are often meant for the express purposes of relaxation and enjoyment. Writing may be a “hobby,” but for most writers, it’s more than that, too. It’s a necessity, and it’s also a lot of work. Most writers have a purpose for writing. They have a story to be told; they have research or ideas to share.
I spent many years pushing writing to the side, treating it as a hobby. In fact, although from a young age I wanted to be a fiction writer, I spent about ten years writing primarily poetry because it took less time. I could finish a draft in a short amount of time. I could revise in a short amount of time as well. I certainly don’t regret any of the time I spent writing poetry—poetry was my passion and motivation for many years, and much of what I learned as a poet informs my fiction.
So, if the question is time, maybe the answer is poetry? Maybe. But don’t sell yourself short. Since giving myself more completely to fiction, I’ve learned that although it takes a lot longer to produce one story than a poem, it can be done in steps. When switching from poetry to prose, I started with writing flash fiction—short small-scale pieces. These flash pieces often came from poems I had written years before. I brought these short pieces to my weekly writing workshop groups and found from the feedback I was given that the stories weren’t quite complete—there was room for them to be developed further. And it wasn’t overwhelming to approach fiction in this way. Baby steps, essentially. Many of my stories started as poems or short fiction pieces, growing and developing over time.
I’m not saying that this is the solution for everybody. And this process probably wouldn’t work well for academic writing and certain other forms of writing (although I do follow a similar process with my blog posts), but it’s something to consider. Additionally, it’s extremely beneficial to find a writing critique group to meet with regularly. I’ve often whipped up a quick poem or flash fiction piece in a half hour or forty-five minutes, just to have something to share with my writing group. Some of these quick pieces, thrown together with very little thought, were received better than pieces I spent much more time on. And many eventually became something larger and more complete (e.g., a story). Sometimes that pressure of a deadline (no matter how superficial) is enough to motivate you and push you to write something, anything.
Because Writing Is Important
If writing is important to you, do your best to find ways to make it a priority. If you’re not making money from what you write, it certainly can be hard to rationalize spending the time and energy on it. But your story (or research or other ideas) is (are) important. Writing has always been a part of my identity, but it wasn’t until I forced myself to devote more time to it that I realized how much more fulfilled I was as a person when I was writing regularly. I am a writer. I need to write. Writing is important. Sometimes we just need to say those words out loud—to convince ourselves (and sometimes others).
So, write on!
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