On Saturday morning, I got up at 9:10 a.m. I poured a cup of coffee (the husband was up already and had it made), carried it to my desk and turned on the computer there for the first time in a week, having been working on my laptop from the living room. I then proceeded to do paying web work, volunteer web work, print postage for mailing blog prizes, clean out the email boxes I don’t use daily, and respond to the things there that needed attention.
At 1:50 p.m. I got up from my desk for the second time (the first was for a coffee refill) so I could eat lunch, having forgotten breakfast – except I really didn’t get up to eat. I got up to go to the kitchen, carve off a breast from the rotisserie chicken the husband brought home after running to the post office and bank, then eat it at my desk while paying bills, seeing as how another month had arrived when I wasn’t looking.
Next time I looked up, it was 4:15 p.m. I’d spent over seven hours at the computer. Bills were paid, check book balanced, more biz emails responded to. I’d also written (or started) three blog posts I had scheduled for this week, and done some promo work for the book I mentioned last Monday. I should’ve sent my newsletter out the day it released. I waited a week, putting it off for the same reason I delayed doing so many of the other things mentioned above. I was writing.
I’m a mess when writing. I can’t think of anything else. Not housework. Not bill paying. Not volunteer work. Last week, I was working to get a proposal to my agent. I had no deadline except the one I’d set for myself. There’s not even money involved, though hopefully there will be! But I didn’t want to leave that world until I had it all in order. I needed to make sure what readers would see in those first chapters was clear, not overly complicated, and woven naturally. It’s a tough balance sometimes. Not too much, not too little. Especially when I know the story and the world so well. But back to the clock.
When I’m creating, my story rolling forward under its day to day momentum, growing into something even larger than I’ve imagined, going in directions I never could have sent it without immersing myself completely, I can sit down at the laptop or with the pen and paper at 9:10 a.m., work until 4:15 p.m., taking nothing but a lunch break, and wind up with only a thousand usable words. Maybe less. All that time, and so little to show for it. Where does the time go? Why, when writing, can I not be as productive as when I have a “to do” list of web work and volunteer work and bill paying and promotional tasks? Those I can slam through, and at the end of the day I can see the progress. Writing? Not so much. I work and work and work and it takes FOREVER and DAYS to turn all those words into a story.
It’s astounding, time is fleeting . . .
I’ve lived on publishing time for years. It’s not the same time the rest of the world lives on. We don’t turn on the creativity faucet, let it run for four hours, turn it off for one so we can go to lunch, start the flow again for another four, then shut it down for an evening spent with the family at the dinner table or at a soccer game or in front of the TV. Those of us who write for a living don’t always sleep normal hours. Some nights I go to bed early and get up the next morning the same. Other times I stay up until the next day rolls around.
And then there are the ways we measure the passing of the year. Not by holidays or birthdays or days of the month, but by the writer’s calendar. Deadlines. Copy edits. Galleys. Release dates. Royalty checks due. Seriously, it’s a wonder authors manage to get anything done or be where they need to be in real world time. But if you think that’s a complaint, you’re wrong. *g* It’s the best life ever.
Clock Flower photos by Hamed Saber
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I so relate to this, having spent the past weeks fiddling with scenes and words, and saying pretty much every day “Why is this taking so long? I’ve been at this for eight hours, how come this is all I have to show for it?” Sometimes you can write 3K in a couple of hours and it’s good with minimal tweaking. Sometimes, um, no. Time is relative, especially book time.
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I’ve been up since 5 a.m. and after five hours, I still haven’t written a single word. But: the kids were fed a healthy breakfast and dropped off at school, my guy had his coffee, the laundry and the dishes were started, the fridge vegetable bin was cleaned out, the pup was walked (twice), the fixings for dinner were obtained from the market, and I even got all the trash cans out in time for the truck.
Somewhere in there I had two cups of tea and a banana.
I don’t mind the chores, but my real goal this year is to keep Publishing out of my writing space (which is really why God created the mobile phone off-switch, the internet log-off, and the easily-unplugged landline phone jack) but so far it’s been tough.
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Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy reading your blog. I love to see other writers excited and REAL about what they’re doing.
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The creativity faucet! I wish I had one. A lot of my job is technical writing – process and procedures, converting technical jargon into something that is easily understood by lay persons. I stop staring at the screen when my husband tells me to just step it out. Ugly or not, step it out and write around it. He’s my hero! Since my stuff is technical is will all eventually fit together – as it was designed.
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A creativity faucet? Lord, yes, sign me up for one too!
Oh, to be able to control the flow…when, how much, how hot…how cool!!! That said, however, a part of me wonders how good my words would be if I didn’t anguish over them at least a little. Seems to me that, as in life, the best things in writing (or at least those we most appreciate) are the ones we work hardest for.