How to Balance Writing, Reading, Being a Human
A few days ago, Mensah was on Twitter bemoaning the fact that it’s hard to balance life, and I was surprised, because I was just thinking the very same thing. As writers and readers and editors, it’s hard to read submissions, keep a personal writing life, do the dishes, and have a real job.
I spent some time on Google looking up stupid things on organization (because I’m the antithesis of organized) and found these posts by a Tumblr member who calls herself Bookavore. The series of posts is about being, well, organized. It’s about being able to get everything done that you need to get done, and about taking ownership of the stuff you gotta do.
To be honest, the posts were endearing. A lot of the time, I feel just like her: scared about doing stupid shit that everyone else probably wouldn’t bat an eyelash at. On a related note, I took the seven deadly sins test today and my sin was “Fear.” I didn’t know they added two “commonly associated” sins to the set: Fear and Deceit. They should probably add another deadly sin that’s just called Going Off On Tangents.
At any rate, sure, I have a lot of anxiety and most of it is probably generated from overcommiting myself, and from being a black belt procrastinator, and from being generally disorganized. But I don’t necessarily agree with the Bookavore that anybody could become organized and get everything done that must be done. I do these things all the time: miss deadlines, forget about stuff I told people I’d do, let the dishes stack up like a terrible wife. I occasionally pay bills late, and I hardly EVER go to the post office. There are actually three things sitting on my desk (under some clutter) that have been waiting to be mailed for weeks. And in one case, more than three months. I think most of the reason I do these things isn’t because I’m irresponsible; I think it’s because I’m stupid.
What’s the point, you ask? Well, I don’t know. I was kind of hoping you’d tell me how to magically clean up my life, how to remember to do tasks that I have plastered all over my date book, which I have also emailed to myself, and which I have also put up a sticky note about on my computer, but which, without fail, I forget to do over and over. I wait until the last minute to write these columns for Specter, usually. I also let my email box fill up so that I’m scared to look into it.
WHAT DO YOU DO?
Writers, I’m calling on you. Do you have a trick you do? How do you balance your writing life with your home life? Your job? Your other job you don’t get paid for?
What sucks is that most of us, if we call ourselves writers, don’t get paid for what we love to do. Some of us enjoy teaching, and we do it. And some of us really love it. But some of us just love writing and can’t find anybody willing to dole out tons of money to us just so we can sit in a room all day without having to see other humans.
I have not found a solution so far. My idea of a solution is to say screw it, and let the apartment look like a rhinoceros went ice skating in here. I go three weeks without writing a damn thing. I find time to do the things that absolutely need to get done right now, like eating, and having sex, and leaving for work, and occasionally mailing a Netflix disc. Eventually I will sit down and the words will come erupting out of me, because if they don’t I will twist somebody’s head off. And that’s how I live.
How do other writers live? Please make conversation about this. I’m feeling at the end of my rope, and vulnerable, and I’m not being very clever, and I really want to know how you guys balance these things.
I write on a schedule. I make myself write on Sunday-Tuesday. If I write more in the week, great. If not, I have to write on those days. I’ve taken time off now and again (like my honeymoon) but I get back on the horse to write. I’m also single, which makes it easier for me to accomplish this schedule. Even when I’m tired from pulling a 10-11 hour day at work as a call center trainer, I push past the fatigue and write.
To recap
1. Setting a schedule/deadlines is a big help.
2. Being single makes the process easier.
3. Sleep is for suckers.
Yeah. I would be set if I could stop trying to do everything, and if I didn’t have to sleep. Sleep is my main issue.
I’m in an MFA program, so I’m always writing against a deadline, which helps sometimes and fills me with crippling BLANK PAGE dread/anxiety other times. The program “Freedom,” which disables internet access for a set amount of time, is a game-changer on that front. If I have Freedom and Scrivener open at the same time, I WILL get writing done. How much and of what quality is up for grabs, but y’know. Crumbs. I take them.
I also write on a schedule, except that unlike JB, I don’t take time off unless I’m so ill that I can’t even get out of bed. Then, I write in my head. And this is the general trick, I think, that I’ve developed: I write in my head all the time. It is amazing that I can do that and stay alive and mostly avoid calamities—with bicyclists, cars, dogs, crazies, trains and other potential distractions of the physical world. — I’m serious: I developed the ability to do this when I wrote only flash fiction (obviously, building 100-500 words in your head and editing it there is easier), but right now, when writing a novel, it still works (for bite-sized chunks of text, until I get to a keyboard). The circumstances of my life kind of enforce this writing style: I’ve got a full time job as a professor, I’m engaged in research projects, I do executive coaching on the side and I have a family, too. In terms of actual output, I get between 400 and 1000 words done every day during teaching term, and 2000-4000 words when I’m not teaching. I often employ a method articulated by British writer Fay Weldon, who said (somewhere, I forget where) that all the novels she wrote when her four (!) sons (!) were little, were written in 15 to 20 minute installments & that this enforced writing in pockets of time did improve her style (which is very effective on the page).By the way, there is an interesting thread on this topic over at Red Lemonade, and I’ve also linked to this conversation from there. Enjoy—Cheers from Berlin!
I like that idea of ‘freedom’! I use Ulysses as a writing program though for quick writing and writing on the go I do now prefer Daedalus Touch on an iPad, which is a fantastic writing tool, I think.
Wow, writing a novel/book in 15 to 20 minute installments sounds so doable for me. I usually don’t want to write until I know I have several hours of uninterrupted time. So that means it doesn’t happen. I should try the little chunks of time, see how it goes. Thanks.