When Life Gets In The Way of Writing

If you wanna get anywhere as a writer, you need discipline. Get your bum on that seat, your fingers on that keyboard and godammit, person, write, no matter what. Don't let anyone or anything come between you and your beloved pages, there's always time to write, the successful and the professionals don't let excuses get in their way, etcetera, etcetera...

And yeah, I get all that. I really, really do.

But sometimes there are just so many things going on in your life that your poor little brain can't hold them all at once and write as well. (Anyone disagreeing with me at this point is doing so because they bloody well have backup; either a PA or a very devoted partner who's happy to pick up the slack and be Super-House-Runner whenever they need their creative space. Well, I'm very happy for you guys, but I'm afraid this post isn't about you. It's about the rest of us.)

My system for getting my arse in gear has always been to have a weekly goal of hours and word count per week that I strive to meet, and tracking my progress from week to week, month to month, with a spreadsheet. I make sure I 'clock up' a minimum of ten hours a week of writing time, and aim for a minimum 2500 words a week. (And yeah, I do realise that's a pitiful amount compared to 'professional' and 'full-time' writers. But I am neither of those things, so I have to make the most of the precious few hours I do get. Sure, I'll be slower to reach the finish line, but I'm no less determined because of that.)

But for the last couple of weeks I've been falling short of my weekly targets - not even meeting my base minimums. This isn't due to lack of inspiration or the dreaded Writer's Block, but simply large chunks of Life getting in the way.

For my first week of faceplanting short of my writing targets, my son's school had its Centenary Year. As this was such a huge event, it required not one but two completely different themed costumes, to be worn on completely different days. Supplied of course by the parents. So my wee laddie needed one schoolboy uniform from the year 1915 for Monday (suuuure, I'll just go dig that out, I'm bound to have it lying around somewhere...) and then another outfit representing 'fashion of the 1960's' for Friday.  And then once you throw in all the special events for parents to attend for the Centenary Week... well, I managed seven and a half hours and 2000 words of writing that week.

This last week has been taken up with my sons ninth birthday. Obtaining and wrapping of presents, organising and preparing food for his party and making his minecraft-themed birthday cake, to be precise. I was more pleased with this years effort...

... than last years. (But only slightly, because thinking anything I've done ever approaches the exacting vision of beauty in my imagination is something that next-to-never happens... but that's a whole other post...)

It's a Minecraft Ender Portal, in case you were wondering. Nope, I had no idea what that was either, until I Google-Imaged it. But it passed inspection by my son and all nine of his party-going friends, so I guess it worked out okay in the end. But... it took a looonng time to make and ice, so even though I still managed seven-and-a-half hours of writing, my total wordcount was even lower than the previous week.

Now don't get me wrong. I do not begrudge a second the time spent on any of the aforementioned activities in either of those two weeks. I believe family should always come above writing in the list of priorities, and if that makes me 'uncommitted to the writing cause'... well, boo-hoo, this is my Don't Care-Face.

But I'll admit, not meeting my targets for two weeks in a row made me... twitchy. Like an addict deprived of her fix, it felt like something was missing from my life to make me feel okay again. And the guilt... Oh! The guilt! Does this mean I'm going cold on 'Redemption?' Am I running out of steam and destined to give up on this novel too, just like all the ones I gave up on before it? Is this nature's way of saying I should give up writing forever, because I just can't commit to any damn thing ever in my whole non-committing failing-at-finishing-a-novel life? 

Mmmyeah, I possibly went a little overboard on the melodrams at one point. But the fact remains, there was some mental self-flagellation going on. But why? Why did I do that to myself? I had some time off, that's all. Took a bit of annual leave to spend time with my family. So why is the Grinch in my head accusing me of slacking off and not having the metaphorical testicles to see my beloved writing project through?

'Cause it's his job, that's why. It's the job of all Grinches in the heads of all writers everywhere - yep, yours too. They want us to fail, and they know the best time to strike with their 'nad-crushing nonsense is when we're feeling vulnerable. And sure, we can listen to them and take their words as 'must try harder' messages. But we must never think of them as Oracles, predicting our future.

It's okay to take time out from writing once in a while. You don't 'stop being a writer' just because you take a break - any more than a doctor 'stops being a doctor' just because he goes on holiday for a couple of weeks. Sometimes a break is just what you need to fill up your well of imagination and come back to the page fresh and invigorated.

So if you ever feel the guilt of Taking Time Away From Your Writing, here's what to do. Take all that guilt, screw it up in a ball and lob it at the old circular file. And start working on the next, new page.

Oh - and give your Grinch a healthy dose of side-eye while you're at it. That should shut him up for a while.

Striving For Perfection: A Great Idea (Theoretically.)

Well, it's all over; Number One Son's eighth birthday party went swimmingly, a fab time was had by all and my stress levels have returned to normal. Normally I would recover by eating cake, but today... cake is likely to make me run for the hills, to be honest. Don't want to see cake again for a very long time. Maybe even a couple of days...

As you might recall from my previous post, I had been tasked with making a Minecraft Island birthday cake, and I was determined to do it justice. The vision in my head was a work of art. My imaginary Minecraft Island cake was a thing of such cakey awesomeness that grown men would look upon it and wish they were children again, so they could have one just like it for their birthday. Every angle was mathematically perfect, every inch of the icing was smooth and flat and coloured to perfection. That was the cake my brain wanted to make.

Unfortunately my brain was just the foreman; the actual work was left to the pair of easily-distracted and somewhat unpredictably-coordinated flappy things at the end of my arms. And they clearly either didn't get the memo, or are spectacularly bad at interpreting instructions - either way, my brain wanted to fire them both on the spot when it saw what they'd done...

It's alright - I'm not fishing for compliments. It's not bad, I know that. But it looks nothing like my brain's interpretation (which was utterly freakin' incredible) so my brain is currently having a massive sulk and screaming that it's awful, a travesty - an insult to cakedom. My son pronounced it 'awesome,' and his little friends were suitably impressed - which I keep telling myself is all that really matters - but even so, I still can't stop myself doing a Simon Cowell Face every time I look at the chuffin' thing. When it came to recreating the sculpture of loveliness in my imagination, I failed.

And I do this so many times, in so many areas of my life.

Whether it's cake-making, arts and crafts, acting, singing - and yes, writing too - I start off with a picture of perfection in my mind, and when the thing I actually produce (inevitably) fails to live up to that ideal, I feel ashamed of both it and myself for faceplanting so far short of the impossible goalposts. It's probably held me back in my writing far more than I care to admit. And as I keep on truckin' through Draft Two of The Renegades, I'm starting to realise I'm going to end up feeling the same way about that too. I'm gonna need to fix that if I want to get this baby published.

I'm far from the only writer to point my arrow at perfection every time. Many of us - even if we don't admit it out loud - have a secret ideal in our minds of who we want our work to be compared to in terms of standard; 'the next Stephen King,' 'the new J.K. Rowling,' 'the Romance Genre's answer to George R.R. Martin' (mmm, okay, maybe that last one wouldn't work so well...) Anyway, those of us who are perfectionists tend to reach for the stars - which is fine, as long as we don't keep turning back in disgust the minute we've left Earth's orbit because our rocket's making funny noises.

There's nothing wrong with striving to produce only the very best work you can do; in fact, readers expect nothing less from any author whose book they've bought and rightly so. The difficulty, if you're constantly chasing perfection, is learning to accept that your 'best work' probably isn't going to be that, because it's simply not achievable - by anyone. If your Inner Critic is a drill sergeant he'll no doubt tell you to abandon all hope - if it looks like what you've produced isn't going to be a No. 1 Bestseller then you've already failed and you should just give up now. Inner Critics have their uses - but they can be a dick sometimes too...

While I was studying Performing Arts I had singing lessons as part of that course. Before that point, I did not sing with the intention of anyone actually hearing it - the very thought of it terrified me. During a one-to-one session with my singing tutor, I confessed to him that this was because I actually hated my singing voice. He asked me why, and after thinking about it for a bit I told him "because when I sing something from Les Mis, I open my mouth and I want Lea Salonga to come out - but all that comes out is me." He laughed and said "Well, you're not Lea Salonga, are you? You're you. So you've got a choice. You can either wait until you magically turn into her before you ever sing a note publicly - and then you'll waste the rest of your life not doing any singing at all. Or you can accept that you're you and work on making your voice the best it can be."

I haven't done any singing in public since graduating from that Performing Arts course, so I think I shall take his words and apply the essence of them to writing instead, since that's my focus now. And to any fellow perfectionists out there: have a high-five from me. Our best is better than 'perfect.' We need to remind ourselves of that whenever we beat ourselves up.