On Friday I stole the day. Life is very busy. It’s less than three weeks to my daughter’s wedding and there’s lots to do and lots happening and it’s all lovely but towards the end of the week I just didn’t feel right. I was in a restless, grumpy mood, the kind of mood that comes on me when I don’t find the time to write, especially when there’s an unfinished story that’s not quite working nagging away in my head.
I told myself relax, I’d given myself a holiday from writing and anyway how could I write with a room like a tip and other things to do? It didn’t work. The only answer was to somehow find the time to write. This is how I did it.
1. Got up early
2. Took out my diary, made a schedule for everything that needed doing – leaving the whole of the day blank – apart from two phone calls which had to be made.
3. Made the phone calls.
4. Took the polish and duster to my desk and tidied up ( NOT major cleaning just 5-10 mins)
5. Picked some sweet peas from the garden and put them in my room, made myself a cup of tea and toast, sat for 5 mins enjoying the flowers and my breakfast.
6. Opened my notebook and the machine avoiding e mail and Twitter
7. Told myself to let the story write itself and BEGAN – by 4 pm I felt much better and my story was finished.
It worked, I found the time to write. I stole the day.Sometimes we can’t come to writing cold. We need to give ourselves permission and we need a ritual or two to start preparing ourselves. I know what rituals work for me. How about you?
For you, it seems that it’s more about making time, rather than, that writerly curse, procrastination! My god, the things I do- and would never normally do to avoid writing. All the while, the notebook and pen perched on the sofa arm almost give me the evils as I faff around it, circumnavigating it’s malignancy, waiting for the moment I shackle myself to the ball and chain of the writerly task! As for routines, I love to hear everybody’s dirty little hidden pattens. The composer Eric Sartie could not write unless he wore his brown suit and and orange tie. So much so, on his death it was discovered that the only clothes he owned were seven identical copies of the said suit, one for each day of the week. For me, I usually drain a pot of tea, make various investigations out of the window, then with a sigh pick up the note book, and yet once i’m on it, I’m really on it!
Hi Warren – I love the story about the suit. If all you need is a pot of tea and a nose out the window you’re not much different to me. Except I don’t ever feel that writing is a ball and chain – maybe that comes from all the years of going through the prison gate every working day because that was a kind of ball and chain – although in other ways an extraordinary experience. Unless the writing is really hot and I’m right in the middle of it I guess my dirty secret is I’ve got to tidy up first – at least a bit.