Life is busy. I know I’m not the only one. Even though I’m a mother with a busy three-and-a-half-year-old and two older kids in the throes of high school and extra-curricular madness, I know that other people are as busy as me, if not busier.
The multi-tasking writer
One piece of writing advice I hear constantly is about consistency. “It’s better to write a small amount every day than to try to blast out 10,000 words once a week.” I hear this and say, ‘Yes, but you don’t know my life!”
Life moves fast, as Ferris told us. There’s not a lot of time to write, unless you are in the privileged position of being a full-time writer. And, by the sounds of it, these writers have their hands full with deadlines, promotions, social media, book signings and conferences.
We aIl have priorities. I want to really be there for my kids, not away in my own world all the time, so I do my best. Of course, my mind wanders off and I have my moments of admiring drawings with unfocused eyes and accidently laughing in response to things that are not jokes. But I don’t like to type, particularly first drafts, when I know I’m going to be interrupted every ten minutes. Some days I don’t write anything.
I was feeling particularly overwhelmed back in June and so my husband and I decided I needed a me-time retreat. (Supportive hubby shout-out.) In my mind, the time-out was about relaxing, unwinding, plus finishing my manuscript. I love writing. It’s not work, it’s fun-time for me. I was at 53,000 words and I wanted to get about 15,000 more down to truly be able to say it was a finished first draft. I’d given myself a deadline for the CYA conference in Brisbane and I just wanted it done. It could be doable in a weekend, right?
I packed up, said goodbye to my darlings, and I was off. I decided against driving to the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, my favourite of places, to save on time and to avoid driving which, as Taxi-mum, I spend a huge chunk of my life doing. I wanted food and resources to be easily accessible, and most of all I wanted a quiet room. So I stayed in Brisbane, a hotel on Southbank, in the city.
It was a fabulous weekend. As far as unwinding goes, mission accomplished. As to the word-count goal, not so much.
Essentially, I had one full day, Saturday, to get it done. I didn’t want to stay up all night since sleep deprivation has very notable effects on my mood and the idea was to come home refreshed, not a walking zombie. These are the lessons I’ve learned.
1. Writing can get lonely.
I am an introvert, I love and need my alone time and I’m never bored exactly BUT I love my loud distracting family and miss them like crazy when they’re not around. I spent a good deal of my time thinking about this, with gratitude in my heart for what I have. Also, I now make use of a white noise app. It’s good for both at home or in cafes, to block out distracting noises, and when everything is just a bit too quiet. This is the one I use.
2. “Writing for prolonged periods of time does weird things to you,” she wrote.
By the evening, when I went out to grab some takeaway, I found myself describing everything as if I were the narrator in my own novel. It was rather hilarious but also driving me bonkers. “She stepped out onto the pavement and experienced a physical assault to her senses. The lights and sound, the smell of food, people brushing past—it was as if she’d been released from a month of solitary confinement.” etc. You get the idea.
3. Writing for prolonged periods of time does not necessarily lead to fantastic writing.
I’m not saying it wasn’t worth it, it was. It wasn’t a waste of time. I had at least two moments of inspiration for some new scenes. But by halfway through the day, my sentence structure was obscenely repetitive. Noun verb object conjunction noun verb object. Filled with fillers and filters. I looked. I felt. I moved. So, but, well. Blah blah, horrible stuff.
4. Writing for prolonged periods of time is bad for your body.
If you’re going to do whole days you need to get up, move, swing your arms around, a lesson I should have learnt from musician days. I find that I’m susceptible to getting a pain in the right-side of my neck. I also have to watch that I don’t rest my wrists on the keyboard. I made sure I was sitting at a desk, unlike the unergonomic positions I find myself in at home, on couches and beds. Even so, I had to be careful. Nowadays, I mix things up using a dictation app and that way I can write or take notes when I go for walks. I use Speechy which I find good. It doesn’t seem to cut out mid-sentence and it keeps the audio recording as well so you can go back and check your words if they don’t come out right.
Conclusion: It’s better to write a small amount every day than to try to blast out 10,000 words in one sitting.
Dammit! They were right. Of course, I should have known better. I’m a musician. And I should know from life experience. School assignments. Cramming for exams, cleaning your teeth, going to the gym. And from Aesop. Slow and steady wins the race. I plan my days more now. I still can’t write every day but I have a schedule. And now, in September, I have my 81,000 words and I’m on my fifth draft.