Yes, I know, it’s been awhile. I apologize to those anxiously
waiting me to tell them the secret of how to work a decent writing schedule
into their day without upsetting regular life. Here’s the awful truth: it’s not
going to happen.
Back in my youth, what the kid’s call my hippie days, the
late fifties and early sixties, women were throwing off conservative conventions
and trying on lifestyles that allowed them to work full time, raise children,
have partners who were equal helpers and lovers, lead healthy lifestyles, look
good and be cool. In other words, women were determined to Have It All. There
were scores of self-help books advising women how to accomplish this goal. A
quick look at Amazon shows me that there are still scores of books claiming the
same thing: Yes, Women, You CAN have it all. There are no books telling writers
that they can have it all as well.
The thing is, you can’t
actually have it all. Or at least you can’t have it all and do everything
effectively. Yeah, I know, I’m going to get pushback on this, so go ahead, send
me your comments, take me to task.
If you’re going to write, especially if you’re going to
write novels and live a reasonably sane life at the same time, some elements are
going to be short-changed. Either Life or The Novel. The question now is: Can I
Live a Life Where One or Some of the Things I’m Doing Are Not Going to be Done
All That Well Some of the Time, or Even All of the Time While Devoting Time and
Effort to My Writing? It makes for a very unwieldy, not very hopeful book
title, one that’s not going to sell many copies.
The first thing that my friends and those I talk to about
this problem say is they will put their novel off until they retire. This is a
sound solution, particularly if you are old like Thriller Guy, but what if you
die first? Or what if you keep putting off retirement because you want or need
to earn more money. And worst of all, what if you wait, sometimes for many
years, and when you finally do have the time to write you find that you just
can’t do it, for any number of reasons: you no longer have the stamina, (trust
me, it’s hard physical work and you’re not as young as you used to be,) you
don’t have the ability to force yourself into the chair in front of the
keyboard, you find it too painful, or it’s just too much damn work. And not fun
at all. (Trust me again, if you are approaching it in a workmanlike manner,
it’s not going to be much fun. See the archives; Thriller Guy has written on
this aspect of The Writing Life many times.) So I don’t recommend putting it
off.
For one thing, you’re wasting valuable time. It is said that
scientists do all of their useful work when they’re young, and I could make an
argument for novel writers as well. Yes, I can think of many exceptions, but
common sense and simple numbers bear this out. If you decide to keep a notebook
of good novel ideas over the course of a year you’re going to have a hell of a
lot more good ideas if you actually think about them and write them down than
if you put it off until you retire. Duh.
If you try to write every day, or once a week, or on
vacation, or on the way to work on the train, or while on airplanes, you may
not be able to scrape together enough time to write a novel in a year, but
you’re sure as hell going to get more done stealing time than if you didn’t try
at all.
And if you don’t want to steal the time, ask those who are
involved with you in life to let you borrow some, or to even give you some,
even though it might make things harder on them. You will be surprised how many
partners and spouses are willing to give those they love a chance to do
something they feel so strongly about.
So ask for help. Negotiate. Try to manage at least a partial
plan. Stay up later. Get out of bed
earlier. Do less around the house. Do less with your family (as long as
everyone understands.) Just don’t be a pig. Don’t be an asshole. And you don’t
need to feel guilty. Or go ahead and feel guilty, it will make you work harder.
You can’t have it all, but you may be able to have enough of
it to make your life feel all right. Not great, maybe, but good. It might take
you longer, you will have to make sacrifices, but you can add pages to the
pile, ideas to the notebook. At the very least, you’ll have more than if you
did nothing. More than if you wait. Is that enough?
Probably not. But it’s better than quitting, giving up, or
never starting.
Ask nicely.
Get to work.
