Still riding a yoga high from an early morning yoga class, on my walk to work this morning, this blog post landed on me. A few things that were said/moments I experienced over the last week or so came together and clicked for me. That feeling, at that moment, may be the closest I’ll ever get to my fantasy of being able to stop time and move around in it like Evie in Out of this World.
The thing that clicked for me has everything to do with the theme of this blog–Make Time. What I realized is that “busyness” is relative and time as we know it does not exist.
Let me explain. I am in my third week of yoga teacher training (which adds up to at least 20 hours a weekend, sometimes more). I’m working on renewal of my National Boards certification for teaching. I’m teaching full-time. I’m helping a talented woman get her stories out and into the world by editing and designing her book. Plus a few other things on the side. I’m guessing you’re thinking right now that I sound “busy”, and that I don’t have time. I’ve certainly been in spots like this where I felt that too. Not this time.
“Busyness” is getting flayed a bit by wellness culture right now. A problem is: we define “busyness” by the number of things we fill our schedules with or have on our to-do lists. From what I can tell “busyness” is a state of mind. If I try to hold things in the future in my mind, I am busy. If I can stay present in the moment and do one thing at a time, I can pack a day to the brim and never feel busy at all. This will require a few things: practice, trust, and an open mind. Our minds run on the tracks we’ve laid out for them through repetition, so staying present will take practice. It may also require you to get your phone habits in check., because our devices are creating terrible habits of mind on top of everything else. Be patient and practice. Trust plays a role here. To be present, we need to trust that the future will arrive and that we will be present for it. What about an open mind? Well, it may turn out that on that list of thirty things you’re simultaneously thinking about doing, a third of them may never happen. A lot of “busy” people actually aren’t doing much at all. They are too paralyzed by how busy everything is.
And then there is time. Our most precious resource, right? Yet, ironically, the more we think about how limited time is and try to hold it fast, the faster it goes and the less of it we have. In one sense, these past few weeks I’ve had less time. However, since so much of that time has been spent developing a mindfulness practice, I do not feel short on time. In fact, I feel sort of amazed at how much more time I have than I thought. My days are more packed for sure, but I feel as though I am moving in slow motion when I’m really in it. I’m certainly not thinking about not having time.
We make time by staying present for the moment we’re in and letting go of our obsession with how limited time is. It is limited, of course. And no one knows just how much time they have. That’s the paradox. To savor the time we have, we need to trust and be. And you don’t need to be an alien from another planet like Evie to have her superpowers.
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals? Find free resources and information here.
Last week, I finished a collection of stories I’ve been working on for twelve maybe thirteen years. I have memories of a retreat I went on with a writer friend somewhere along the way where I mapped out all the stories and their interconnections using overlapping circles and colored markers. This friend took a picture of me lying belly down on the deck of the cabin where we were staying. I look happy in the picture. I had finished the task of planning. That was twelve years ago.
I came across that diagram the other day when I was cleaning out my file cabinet. Reviewing it’s contents, I had to laugh. So much had changed! The story hadn’t gone at all the way I thought it would. Characters names had changed. The order of stories and their titles too were unrecognizable to me. The seed idea was sort of the same, but even that had evolved to be something more specific than I had started with.
As I was writing the last story in the collection, an insight came up for me that I’d had before. One of those lessons as a writer or a practicer of anything that we have to learn over and over. It is of course the goal of writing to some day finish. And by finish I mean feel satisfied that you’ve done all you can with a piece, that it really is time to send it on it’s way into the world to see how it goes. The problem is that when we focus on finishing, we compromise the work itself.
Writing is a practice of staying in the moment, of being willing to be honest and present enough to bring the words to life. If in the back of your mind your desire to finish is nagging away, it will infect your work. The focus and attention to the moment of each story became more difficult to sustain the closer I got to the end. I kept starting and stopping because when my mind strayed to the future where I was finished, I knew the writing would be no good. It reminded me of the stories Dillard tells in The Writing Life about some of the crazy things writers do to keep themselves in the flow.
So I’ve “finished” and am taking a brief pause in taking up any big projects, taking the time to do some deep yoga work and write frivolous poems and stories for a few months. Four of the stories in the collection have found a place in the literary world. Below are links to where you can read those stories. Look for the whole collection in the not so distant future.
The original form of this blog started in 2007 or so. It began and in many ways still is a way of asserting myself as a person who writes. More accurately, a person who deserves to write. And do you know what? Being a person who deserves to write had been one of the boldest assertions I’ve ever made. To do this work, I’ve had to contend with all of the following:
my tendency to take care of the needs of others above myself
insecurity
self-doubt
the need to earn money to support my family
fear
laziness
indecision
impatience
exhaustion
And this is just a starter list. I used to post here more often. That’s because I hadn’t yet figured out what I was writing. I had a just barely 50,000 word novel I’d busted out in November 2005 (NaNoWriMo), notebooks full of poems, and a few half-baked short stories.
Now, what time I have to write (Precious little! When can I retire?!), I spend chipping away at one of the three projects I’ve got in the works: two novels and a short story collection. I also work as an editor and designer for people self-publishing their book (Red Dress Press). Oh, and I teach high school English.
So, I post to this blog less these days, always trying for once a week and falling short. But this blog is forever with me, and I am always sending out wishes for flow to all of you out there endeavoring to tell your story through art in spite of all the distractions (internal and external).
Here are some things that lately are helping me Make Time:
consistent writing schedule
no phone, no email until after writing is done
nurturing supportive relationships
letting go of relationships that drain me/ leave me feeling small
I’m here, writing with you. I’ve been here writing with you since I first picked up a pen at fifteen and wrote the most untutored, beautiful-in-retrospect poem. I wrote that poem as an assertion of what had to be asserted first. I want to live. I’ll find a way.
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals? Find free resources and information here.
Let’s talk for a minute about zines. Being at the forefront of the Riot Grrrl movement, Olympia has a rich history of zines. In fact, there is still an annual Zine Fest here. I love the idea of guerilla publishing on the cheap and then distributing your work for free because you want to get your message out, which is the original intent of zines. Kind of like blogging without the internet or computers. Kind of. I mean the collage and handwriting aspect can’t be replicated by a computer which makes everything so polished and tidy. There is a special place in my heart for this brave and anti-capitalist form of self-publishing.
A few years back, some friends and I got together to make zines. I made a zine trying to articulate the core ideas behind how we Make Time for art in spite of everything. Basically, what this blog is all about. You can print and download the zine here.
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals? Find free resources and information here.
I come from a long tradition of writers whose creativity seems to depend on movement. Long walks clear my mind, creating space for the seeds of stories to grow unchoked by the weeds of surface worry. Running cuts through my self-doubt and overthinking. Yoga feeds my intuition and cultivates mindfulness and self-acceptance. These are key qualities of mind to induce states of flow. I lean particularly on lessons learned in yoga while in revision mode. Hiking and/or backpacking cultivate the resilience to trust in the messy process. In late July, I backpacked around Mount St. Helen’s, along the Lowitt Trail, with two friends. The trail offered several physical and mental challenges, plus some nuggets of wisdom that I carried home with me to use when I returned to the page. Let me try to break them down here in a few key aphorisms.
In this moment, there is peace.
No matter how hard I try to avoid it through careful preparation, I always seem to pack heavy. This was a topic discussed often on the trail as other hikers seemingly sped by us with comparatively petite backpacks. We asked each other: What would you leave behind to have a lighter pack? Answers were–not much. So, our packs were heavy. Except for the first overcast morning, the sun shone fiercely. We spent four days and three nights on the trail. At times the trail seemed to be a mere scratch on a cliffside, the ground just shifting sands underfoot. We trekked up and down many rock gullies. Three of these were so steep that they required ropes to navigate the trail. In a couple of places, the trail seemed to disappear before our eyes as we walked across boulder fields that stretched on and on into the distance. We scrambled our way from trail marker to trail marker, following the dusty footprints or cairns left behind by hikers before us. So much of the trail was exposed that you could see the routes ahead for miles. But here’s the thing: there is a lot of discomfort that comes with thinking about those miles ahead. Just as there is discomfort in thinking of how much further you need to go on your journey to finish your book, or to publication. For the most part, worrying too much about the future makes everything harder. During rest stops, I would pull out my map and think about the road ahead, but when we got to walking again, I tried to stay in the moment. I literally counted the number one to myself over and over to myself at times as a reminder. In this moment, there is a three-headed tigerlily proudly lit by the sun. In this moment, the lavender lupine carpet spreads out along the base of the hills and along the trails. In this moment, I can turn and see any of three mountains and feel a rewarding breeze at the top of a hill.
In writing, there is the ritual of the warmup. I feed and walk my two dogs, do a moving meditation, and prepare the sacred coffee. There is the feel of the keyboard under your fingertips, the sound they make when you get going. The pause of thinking, too. There is the moment of the story unfolding in your imagination. The stall when you get to a sticky part. The breakthrough. It’s counterproductive to the work in these moments to think too much about the miles ahead. Doing so has been known to sabotage an entire writing session. If I’m honest? It’s enough to do in a whole week of them.
Turn up your senses.
The mind wants to worry about the future (or to rehash the past). On the trail, this becomes strikingly tedious. There is so much more joy to be had in turning up the senses. Notice the bright red miniature strawberries along the trail. Then bend over to pick and eat one. Identify plants and trees. Take in the panorama of trees, sky, and earth. Listen for birds, the sound of flowing water, the voices of other hikers approaching, who might have intel on upcoming water sources.
The days were long. The water sources were sparse. Our bodies were more tired and sore each day. Our feet hurt, then blistered. But what do I really remember when I look back on all that? The moments, when I had my senses turned up to the volume of awe. Every night we sat under an open sky, trying to name all the constellations we could remember knowing. That is the sort of thing we need to do as writers: turn up our senses in the spirit of constructing our stories so that the places, characters, and scenes come alive in our imaginations.
Take care of others.
I know some people who like to hike alone. I’m not one of those people. When we stopped for water, we stood in a line so we could remove each other’s water bottles from the sides of our packs. At one point, my shoe was untied, and my friend said, here, put your foot up on my knee so I can tie it for you. We told each other stories. We pointed out what we saw along the way. We all paused when one of us needed a break. We shared snacks, sunblock, and moleskin. The end of every day was spent sitting in our camp chairs, sharing a meal, and laughing. Well, except for the night when we were too tired and possibly dehydrated to eat. But even that night, we laughed.
It can be the same way in writing. You certainly can go it alone, and I suppose that’s a quicker way to dig into the deep dark shadows of your soul if that is what you are after. As for me, I am looking to connect to others through my writing and along my journey. This means cultivating friendships with other writers, taking time to read other people’s work and give feedback, offering encouragement, writing a blog to inspire other writers, being a part of a writing group or community, and reading and reviewing other writers’ work. It’s taken me some time to see that this part is at least as important as the writing itself.
I’m taking August off from actively writing forward with my novel, focusing on rest and renewal. I’m gathering all the strength and commitment I will need to get back to my desk at 4 AM on school day mornings through the coming school year. I’m proud of myself for writing through June and July, and also for having the sense to take August off. It hasn’t even been two weeks, and I already feel the benefit of the pause. When I return to my characters again in September, I will be more present for them because I took the rest I needed to. The need for a rest may also have been inspired by the incredible effort it took to make my way all the way around Mount St. Helen’s in four days. And you bet your ass you would have heard the three of us singing that familiar refrain “She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes” when we got there.
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals? Find free resources and information here.
I am a firm believer in goals, as S.M.A.R.T as you can make them. Check out my 2022 Writing Plan document and file/make a copy for yourself while you’re at it. This document should be proof enough that I root for team have a specific plan and write it down.
And.
I believe that when you sit down to write you should kindly ask your goals to go for a walk and get some air.
When you sit down to write, you want to enter a flow. You want to be patient and stay in the moment. Future-tripping about whether you are going to meet your word count or deadline is going to hurt your writing. You will let things through that you know could be better just because you want to finish.
When you sit down to write, you need patience and presence. You need to climb into the sentence, the scene, the place and be there: hear it, see it, smell it, feel it, taste it. Then, you need to sit back, read it out loud and ask yourself–In what ways does this scene develop my story? My character? What parts of this scene does neither of those things?
Then, cut, cut, cut.
You can’t also be thinking about your word count goal or deadline. That efficiency mindset will stifle your voice. Isn’t telling stories that matter to you in your voice the reason you wake up at the crack of dawn or write during your lunch break?
Here are some things I do to keep my goals out of my writing time.
Mood matters.
For me right now that means I have an electric blanket on my lap. I’ve meditated, said my prayers, lit a candle. Even before that, I have a designated space where I know I will work. I have visual inspiration and affirmations posted everywhere. I have lists to keep me focused and to remember good habits. For instance, I have a post-it note with a no symbol (circle/slash) through it. Email is productivity straight up. Send it walking too.
Sit for the time.
Once you sit to write, do not get up for anything that isn’t a true emergency. So, basically unless there is a fire or you might pee your pants. I use a Pomodoro timer to keep me single focused in twenty five minute chunks. If a thought pops up screaming to be addressed now, I write it on a post-it and promise to take care of it after I write.
Connect.
Talk to other writers about your process. Listen to what works for them. Read craft books. Join a writing community or group. This will build your identity as a writer. The more you truly see yourself as a writer, the easier it will be to honor the time.
Have a schedule.
You can’t sit for time you have not scheduled.
Practice.
It may never go perfectly. You might have five minutes of flow or fifty. Doesn’t matter. Keep showing up.
I am here with you, showing up for the time. My light sees your light. We’ve got this.
Let’s Make Time, 2022.
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I am so close to wrapping up the first draft of the novel I am working on now. Let’s see…can I elevator pitch it yet?
Three women who were close in college are all at points in their lives when they need to take charge of their own stories and make some changes. They see each other through social media, which is a false and isolating view. Through their stories, we see how it might be possible to subvert the passage of time and bridge distance to restore friendship.
That’ll have to do for now. I haven’t even finished the damn book. My goal right now is to finish by the end of October, then spend National Novel Writing Month working on a new short story collection and submissions. I know, it’s not the program. It’s been a lot of years since I followed directions in November. My goal will be two new stories per week and six submissions. This blog update is forcing me to pin that down.
The routine
So far, fall writing has gone well for me. I’m up at 4 am, in bed by 8 pm. There are sacrifices I have to make in doing that, such as less time in the evening and just less free time in general. While the siren song of more leisure time on weekdays does call me at times, I keep reminding myself that this is a choice I am making so that I can pursue my passion. Other people sometimes say to me they don’t know how I do all the things I do, i.e. how I work as a teacher and still have time to write, take yoga classes, and go to the gym. It’s not magic. It’s a schedule, discipline, and a lot of sacrifices.
It helps that I am no longer drinking. Wine is a major time-suck, plus it mucks up your mood and energy. I’m on my second read-through of Quit Like A Woman, a book that finally spoke to me in a way that felt true to me about alcohol.
Last tidbits on how I’m making time
Sometime early pandemic, I found a new writer’s group online. That group is working well for me. It is one of times I am happy to Zoom these days. That group, guitar lessons, and an occasional “coffee date” or tarot reading with a friend.
My goal this week is 5000 wc, write two blog entries, submit three stories.
As for the blog posts, I’m hoping to shake things up a bit here. I’ve got years of posts motivating you to make time and I will keep talking about that, for sure. I’m also going to be posting more creative non-fiction this year as a themed experiment of mine. I’ve got themes lined out for every month, and I hope to post once per week. What’s the October theme? Stay tuned…
Want more inspiration?
Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
I’m 25, 000 words into my novel, and I’m stuck. Worse yet, self-doubt is finding it’s way in despite the traps I’ve laid to catch it and snuff it out before it can take root. It’s the usual shit that can creep in during a first draft. Is there even a plot here? How will this all even come together? No one but you is going to find these people at all interesting. This is going nowhere. Why even waste your time? There are so many better books out there already. Stop embarrassing yourself.
So, this morning I am reminding myself and you that the first draft is simple about persistence and pushing through all of this bullshit designed to stop you. Simply trust that whatever needs to be fixed can be fixed later. Do your best right now to get your characters from beginning to end. Stay connected and committed to the story you felt compelled to tell and, for now, don’t worry too much about the future.
I am reminding us both. Now, go set a timer and get some words on the page. Today and tomorrow you may feel like you are crawling one word at a time through enemy territory, but you’ve got to focus on the words and keep going.
A lesson that has been coming up for me again and again in various aspects of my life is the importance of paying attention and adjusting my pace accordingly. I’ve had some runs of late where I start to feel low on gas mid-run. As soon as that happens my mind starts to tell the story about why I’m too tired to run the full route. Maybe I didn’t eat enough or I didn’t sleep enough or whatever explanation my imagination can find for why that original feeling of low-energy means the run is over, I may as well start walking now. Here’s what I’ve started doing in those moments. I keep running, but I slow the pace and listen. I let go of my sense of urgency and expectation. Just about every time I do this, I find my stride again.
I’m writing this to remind both of us that the same is true for writing. Lately I feel like I’m moving slow motion through molasses to even get a paragraph written. The longer this goes on, the longer my list of ideas and projects get. When this happens writing starts to feel like a chore that never gets done. Something responsibility that you have, but you have no time to do it in. I’m reminding both of us that writing is a choice and YOU get to set the pace. I heard a trainer say to someone at the gym the other day “you are not running a race” to get them to slow down the pace of each lift.
This is true for writing too. You are not running a race. Be happy with a paragraph is that is what you get. It will be your bridge to the next sixth paragraphs tomorrow.
If you’re like me, you drum up this sense of urgency. This desperate need to finish the book. For me, it’s about outrunning death, about meeting some imaginary timeline by which I should have accomplished such and such, but mostly about wanting to get through the difficult parts of writing as soon as possible.
Here’s what I’ve noticed, though. When I slow my pace and listen? The work opens up. The writing is better.
The picture I’m posting along with this blog entry is a photo of me at mile 26 of the first marathon I ever ran (2005). You might be thinking, but wait that doesn’t fit at all with your “you’re not running a race” analogy?! My only goal in that race was to finish with dignity. Endurance was the ultimate goal. Adjusting my pace is how I finished that race.
You are doing many other things while also trying to write and all of these things will impact your focus and energy. Adjust your pace accordingly. That will allow you to write through even the tough times, so that when your energy begins to flow again, you will be poised, warmed up, and ready.
It is about making a schedule and sticking to it. It’s about getting up before everyone else and setting aside all distractions to get to work. It’s about stopping at the coffee shop on your way home and claiming those two hours before you go home to your family, really claiming them. Not taking texts during that time. Deep-diving into that single focus during the time you have set aside for you and your work. It is about that. And yet, you will feel impatience because that time goes faster than you think and that goal you made is taking longer than you thought. When you feel that impatience coming on, you might be tempted to throw up your hands in defeat and take up binge-watching as a more suitable hobby for you. Why not shake up the routine instead?
Here are some ways to do that:
Set your alarm for fifteen minutes earlier than you already do.
Take one weekend and drop everything from your schedule except writing. Turn off your phone, and dive into a virtual retreat. Don’t make coffee dates, skip the Saturday appointment at the gym. Just for one weekend–single focus. Try this once a month if you are feeling particularly motivated toward progress. Here is a link to my virtual retreat form to help you get your goals lined up for this weekend. More forms available on my coaching page.
Make easy meals or do a family fend-for-yourself week and write during the dinner hour.
Write during your lunch hour every day for a week. Reward yourself for your commitment at the end of the week. Plan the reward in advance and follow through with it.
Try using audio memos to talk through your ideas when out walking or doing housework. Yes, you will look like you’re talking to yourself, because you will be talking to yourself. Own your crazy.
What ideas do you have? I want to know. This list is for me as much as it is for you.
Happy writing this week, my writer friends!
Oh, and here’s a free Pomodoro timer to keep you honest. When you hit that timer, do just that one thing. Ah, ah, ah–put that phone down. Just that one thing.
