Guest post by Eros-Alegra Clarke, a fiction writer who went to New Zealand for the surfing, and never left. Alegra won the Grand Prize, 76th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition, with her short story, Salamander Prayer. Lately she’s been toiling in the muddy fields of the novel, while simultaneously mothering three small children. Read more on her blog, Eros-Alegra Clarke, a Golden Retriever with Butterfly Wings.
WHEN IT COMES TO MANAGING MY LIFE, I spend a lot of time dreaming about sprouting a second set of arms. Actually, those are my conservative dreams – in my wild, unrestrained dreaming, I add a third set of arms and grow a new head. But barring a lucky encounter with a radioactive asteroid, I don’t think there is much hope of me becoming anything other than your average, frantic, two-armed, one-brained female.
With a three month old baby and two other children aged 5 and 3, I don’t have time to put into place the organizational systems that in my pre-motherhood days served me well. And, ironically, it seems like with each child I have had, the more external, non-motherhood related opportunities have presented themselves to compete for my time.
Between dishes, laundry, small-scale catastrophes, and the need for sleep, I am daily learning to focus on habits of efficiency and adaptability. I don’t have a lot of control over my environment, my daily schedule, energy levels or sanity on any given day, so I need methods of working that are flexible. People often ask me how I manage to write a novel with everything else going on around me. So far these 4 strategies are what seem to be working:
1. Quantity over quality. I look at a daily writing habit as being no different than exercise for the body. Consistency goes a long way. Squeezing in just 20 minutes a day of writing time is far better than waiting for inspiration to strike and hoping that when it does, I will have the time and endurance to sit down for hours and write. Even when it feels like my writing is nothing but uninspired sludge, I have noticed that over the long haul, the daily effort means improvement. If I’m not in training, I’m falling out of shape. At the least, my writing isn’t improving.
2. Words out equal words in. It can be tempting to look at reading as a luxury or something only to be done when there is spare time, but I have come to the conclusion that if I don’t have the time to read, I don’t have the time to write. When I am putting out more words and not replacing them by reading, my writing starts to suffer. Reading actually saves me time. I am absorbing invaluable lessons in how to write a good novel.
3. Multi-tasking. While I don’t deny that I need periods of uninterrupted quiet, I don’t often get to dictate when those times will be. I try not to look at chores as time apart from my creativity – if I am hanging laundry, mopping floors, putting away dishes, I am also mulling over scenes and plot issues. I compose blogs while weeding or taking a shower. I cuddle with my kids while they watch a movie and I read. It is what I like to call an ‘attitude of availability.’ Even if I am taking a break to watch a favorite show on television, my mind is open to relating whatever is going on around me to informing the project I am working on. I often find when I am stuck on a plot issue if I take a break but remain available the answer comes to me in an unexpected way.
4. Support systems. I have great people surrounding me. I make no claims to be a stoic single mother raising her novel without help. I require a support system. I am aware that some writers are several draft wonders. They work in a solitary environment, locking themselves in rooms and emerging after two drafts with a brilliant child in their hands. That is not me. I wish it was. I am a messy writer. It takes me multiple drafts to get things right. Left on my own, I would keep editing and revising until my poor novel figured out a way to climb out the window and run away from home. Because of this, I have several friends whose editorial eye I trust. When I reach a level of feeling like it is ‘almost’ there, I run my writing by these friends. It saves me a great deal of time and agony to get a fresh, outside perspective on the writing.
Beyond my writing circle, I have a supportive family believing in me far more than I believe in myself most days. My husband gives me the space and time I need to get my writing done. Of course, I think this might partly be because he is a smart man. He wants me to write because he wants to survive me. As the saying goes: If the wife isn’t happy, nobody is.
This might be the greatest reason any writer is able to write in a life that is full of distractions and demands. The other option is misery. I have come to believe that anyone can write. A writer is someone who has to write. We find time each day to prepare food and eat. A writer finds time to write. It is a necessary requirement for us to thrive.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
my biggest rule is to stop worrying about whether or not i’m going to get my writing in. i always get it in — how else would i have finished the equivalent of two full novels in the last 2 1/2 years? being ADHD is tough on writing, but i find my focus in the later hours of the night, lights all off, TV silently displaying a movie i’ve seen 900 times (and one that sets the right mood visually), wiener dog under his blanket, iTunes going. no, we can’t all find quiet time, but my battle is with a quiet mind, so it’s similar. thus i have to set the environment up.
I often do a lot of my writing late at night too. I don’t know what it is, but something about those ‘after hours’ allows me to focus. I find that I really have to discipline myself because I am unable to sit for long stretches and write – even under ideal circumstances. I need to get up every 30 minutes or so. The trick is being able to keep my mind focused on the writing while I take a break. That is where an empty house helps – I can take care of a chore and still be meditating on the scene I am working on.
I come by way of Alegra, who neglected to mention that she also wears a Superwoman cape. The second point sticks out for me because I really don’t read as much as I should and, in turn, end up not writing as much as I should. In the past, different books that I was in the middle of reading have inspired me to try and match the talent before me or have given me a “I can do better than this” belief. In either case, read words led to written ones.
Pete – whenever I am stumped, lacking inspiration (all of which I guess can be summed as that idea of ‘writer’s block’) I always pick up a good book and read. It never fails to do the trick. It is probably similiar to the way we will watch a star athlete in a sport we love or are training for – you know, my surf videos before I hit the waves! It gets us all pumped up Rocky-style.
)
And by the way, my Superwoman cape is tattered, spit-up stained, and used to wipe the floor with these days
It is said that when there’s a will, there’s a way. I believe that we can do anything if we learn to thrive and be patient. Success comes from within.
Walter, I completely agree. Life is never without its challenges and complications.
I love the thread of these comments.
Watching star athletes can be inspiring. But they make it look so easy. I played basketball when I was young, and I was very serious about it. Watching Michael Jorden penetrate and maneuver in the paint always amazed me: he seemed to contrive it that no one was any closer than 2 feet to him. Sometimes it even looked choreographed. That’s not “real” basketball, I would think, where guys are collapsing on you, tugging on your jersey, forcing you to foul them, make a bad pass, take a bad shot. Jordon seemed to always have air around him. He made it look like a walk in the park. Steve Nash in more recent times sometimes has achieved this air of effortlessness in or near the paint. It looks like an illusion.
And that’s my point (finally): the great ones create an illusion that makes the hard look easy. You read them and you think, “That’s so simple. I could write that.” You feel the excitement that something great might even be within our own reach, and it’s thrilling and inspirational.
Yet…it can also inspire bad writing. Because what DOESN’T show is the intense amount of work that went into making it seem like nobody actually “worked” on it. Jordan and Nash “effortlessly” inhabit the right square inch of the court at just the right millisecond because of the hundreds of thousands of hours of work that went into creating the possibilities of that moment AND MAKING THEM LOOK EASY. End of rant.
I love the idea that inspiration can be actively sought, and believe in it totally. If you know how to hunt and “catch” it, you can carry on a writing life in short bursts that rivals, if not surpasses, your productivity at those times when you’re blessed with stretches of 6-8 unencumbered hours.
Patience is important. But what exactly IS patience? Some people think it’s just waiting your turn. I think it’s something close to wisdom. Patience pulls together awareness, vision, realism, and confidence. Think about how “impatient” people usually come up lacking in one or more of these areas:
• They act without being fully aware of consequences.
• They act without an accurate vision of what they want, or how to achieve it.
• They are driven to act by desires so unrealistic as to be destructive.
• They lack the kind of confidence you need to bide your time as you prepare for a realistic run on the possible.
(and I’ll take my answer off the air…)
Great post Alegra (per usual!)
You know, you ARE a superwoman, but what I admire about you is you note your priorities — and you don’t deviate from them. As a mom and academic, I make room for writing by ‘giving up’ time wasters like tv and malls. I write in the early am because that way for sure it gets done. Late nights is bonus time. My vacation days are usually spent at home writing while the kiddos are in school.
Patience? One word at a time.
Like your digs, Bill — I’ll be back! Peace, Linda
Great post Alegra, and thank you so much for assuring me I’m not crazy!
I just started writing fiction a little more than a year ago, (I had been writing nonfiction for quite some time and contributed to a local newspaper column). I thought writing fiction would be so much harder, and really struggled with whether or not I was “cut out for this”, but the more I wrote, the more confidence I felt, and now it feels like a necessity. Though I work a full-time job, have fibromyalgia, and rear two children, one with autism and the other very active in sports, I still find time to write. I find, if I don’t write something every day, even if it’s a tiny ten minute window, I feel incomplete and can’t concentrate on any other aspect of my life. Yes, it’s an addiction. I do wish I could create the “perfect” writing schedule, but when a body has such a large life to keep up with, it’s almost impossible. But, as you said, there is time, and we must be dilligent in using that time wisely.
Thanks very much for this wonderful post, and thank you Bill for hosting Alegra!
Bill – I love watching Jordan (plus the surfers like Lisa Andersen): basketball and surfing, two of my approved of sports!
And, I loved what you have pointed out here about the effort put into making something look effortless. I have often felt dismayed that it seems to take me so many drafts to get something ‘right’ and even then it is never ‘right’ until it is taken away from me via publication! But I have also learned to accept that while some writers may be one draft wonders, I am not.
Linda – Thank you! You are so right about the time management. I was thinking about this the other day when someone asked me, “How do you do it?” And I realized the short answer is actually a question: “How can I NOT do it?” If the door to a dream that has been in you since childhood cracks open…of course you are going to do everything in your power to keep that door open and walk through! Well, at least that is what I would do ;o)
Deanna – YOu are very welcome! I know what it is like to work through physical disabilities and motherhood. I suffered chronic fatigue for years due to an undiagnosed heart problem – I think it really helped me to focus and distill my life down to its essence. I had no other choice. Writing has always been one thing that effortlessly energizes me.
We have to remember we have bodies! Last year I indulged myself embarrassingly for a guy my age: I put in a little half-court in my back yard. It’s been long years since I was able to roll out with a ball in my hand, head for a playground, and and shoot my way into pickup slug fests with random teens. I still get out and shoot around though. I also keep a mountain bike in the shed. And a heavy bag hangs just outside my office window. These are the things I like to do to remind me I’m a physical person. I’ve never been much of a water sports guy, much less a surfer (I can’t even roller skate). My cousin Misha grew up surfing behind his house and is now in grad school at San Diego, largely I suspect because of the surfing. If I was ever tempted for a nanosecond to try surfing, the buzz died when he told me about being nudged innumerable times by sharks––one even leaped over him. I’ll watch Shark Week from my couch.
My revelation about the mind numbing labor to make it read “simple” came at college when I hated my first scribblings (poetry) with a despair I so dark it was making me sick. Naturally, I was constantly comparing my little yawps with the majestically SIMPLE (later) work of my favorite guy at that time, W.B. Yeats. Then, through a happy accident, I had the “duhh” moment that changed me forever.
Linda and Deanna and everyone else who followed Alegra here: thanks so much for the visit, and come back anytime. I do try to keep the digs fresh and interesting. And many, many thanks, of course, to Alegra, whose spirit lights up any digs she walks (or surfs) into.
Great post Alegra. I especially like the comparison between getting your words in and training. I never really thought about it that way before, but you’re right. Imagine if you were trying to get fit, but you only went to the gym when you were feeling motivated. Writing can be like anything else you are looking to achieve, the sacrifice of time (or creation of it) is the most important part of creating routine.
Bill – I’ve found that doing something physical is nearly as essential to remaining inspired as reading is. Especially if it is something that is meditative but mentally active – like basketball or surfing. It helps me to think.
And thank you again for your generosity in hosting me here.
Mark – I have really found that looking at it this way, like the development of a habit, has helped me demystify and remove some of the anxiety associated with the process. For example, I don’t have ‘writer’s block’ I have ‘sluggish’ days. I look at diving into a blank page, a new scene sort of like those first ten minutes of getting the blood circulating with exercise – some days a training session has a sort of effortless animal grace about it, other days my blood is full of lead and my body is screaming “No! I want to go eat cheese puffs and hide in bed! Leave me alone!”