I’m still here, making time.

lizshine74by lizshine74

In A Room Of Your Own, Be here now..

I’m still here, making time.

What?

The theme of this blog is how to make time. In spite of all of the obligations we face as writers who also work full time, raise children, love to lose themselves in reading books, enjoy creative side projects (for me lately that is brewing my own kombucha and making vegan cheese)–in spite of all of these things and all the other pulls on our time I didn’t list here–how do we make time to write?!

Why?

If you are my audience, I don’t have to explain the why. It’s not logical, practical. There is no publication goal you have to meet in order to legitimize what it is that you do. You do it out of a need that only other creatives will understand. You do it for the joy of creating.

The joy of creating. Remember that. Next time you spiral into some crisis of confidence, some self-imposed or peer-inflicted question of your legitimacy. You do it because you enjoy creating stories. You are drawn to frivolous creation and in the act of creation, you find a kind of connection to the universe, a stripping away of the self that is transcendent.

I haven’t been blogging much lately about how to make time, because I have little time to make for many months now.

How?!

I wake at four most weekday morning to squeeze in an hour or more of writing. How much time I get depends on whether and how many times I hit snooze, whether I let in distractions, whether I have a clear goal in mind,  and all the other factors that make up any effort to sit down and focus on the task of writing.

This school year I am working an extra class period, which somewhat amusingly (knowing what I know) is called a “super FTE” by our school district. This means six classes instead of five in a day, no planning period. An extra class to plan for, grade for, with less time allotted. I am also coaching Speech and Debate with takes up a couple of hours for practice in the afternoons for the first five months of the school year and nine or so weekends for tournaments.

Point being, making time has been extra difficult lately. But I keep getting up, keep working toward my goal, log the writing work I do each day on my calendar. I go easy on myself on days when I oversleep, am too tired and get little done, fall into some distraction that takes up all the time I have available.

All of you who are out there also doing this work are a boon to me. My writer’s group peeps who I see every Monday too. I am grateful.

I have been thinking again lately about the power of mindfulness in the act of writing. I’ve read a couple of books on the subject and the idea is tied to my long-term interest in yoga and meditation. I’ve written before about how other meditative acts such as yoga and running can strengthen our writing practice. That still emerges as a core truth in this question of art and time. The idea has been living in me since I read Writing Down the Bones at age sixteen and did all the exercises Goldberg offers in that classic book on how to free the creative spirit from the grip of doubt, fear, and anxiety and just get some words on the damn page for starters.

I’ve got about twenty-five more minutes left before I need to get ready for work, so I’m going to go edit two pages before this writing session is over. I just wanted to pop in to remind you that I am still here making time and so glad that you are here making time with me.

Love,

Liz

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Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

lizshine74

lizshine74

Liz Shine teaches high school English, writes, edits, and coaches other writers from her home in Olympia, WA. When she begins to feel overwhelmed by it all, she simply looks up at Mount Rainier in the distance and gets back to work. If that fails, she heads to the ocean. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press. Her Substack Make Time is her gift to writers, like her, trying to magic time in this crazy, busy world. All of those posts are cross-posted on the blog here. You can see more of her writing at lizshine.com and find her on Instagram {@lizshine.writer} cooking, traveling, and in other ways seeking moments of awe. She has been an active participant in communities of writers since the early 1990s. She’s learned that two things feel truly purpose-driven in life: writing and coaching other writers. In the in between (because one cannot be driving for a purpose every moment), she enjoys looking for wonder and connection. She is a lifelong yoga student, an enthusiastic walker along streets and trails, and an amateur gardener and vegetarian cook. She lives in Olympia, WA in the USA. She believes in the power of practice and has been practicing writing since some time in the early 90s when she became an adult in the rain-soaked city of Aberdeen. Writing began with journaling, as a way to understand a confusing, sometimes violent coming-of-age. She writes mostly fiction, some nonfiction, and poetry, and holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers Workshop. She has published in Shark Reef, Dual Coast, and Blue Crow Magazine. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.