My writing glass is half full and half empty

9 Aug
0

I am struggling with time management issues. (I ask those of you who know me well to refrain from making jokes about my tendency to run late. I’m much better than I used to be. Ask anyone. No really. Ask.)

I am having trouble finding time to write. I have that pesky full-time job and a commute of at least one hour each way. Then there’s a horse that needs to be ridden and a dog that needs to be walked. Oh and friends. Trying to see friends. And trying to go to the gym to fend off the ill effects of aging, in addition to death and disease. Not to mention needing to spend time with my husband, who does, after all, inform all of my fictional heroes and could therefore be considered research.

This would be the half-empty part, the struggle to find time to write.

The half-full part is, this never used to be a problem. I never used to have trouble finding time to write because, well, I didn’t write. I talked about writing, I complained about how I should be writing but wasn’t, I beat myself up because I thought about writing every single day and never wrote. I saw myself as a writer, but one who never actually wrote anything, just one who whined about a deplorable lack of self-discipline and an abundance of self-loathing.

It is a joyous problem to have. Now I love to write and find the other necessities of my life to be intrusions upon my writing. I hear people tell me how I have to buckle down and finish my novel, and I think to myself, ‘that’s so not the problem anymore. I can’t wait to work on it, whenever I can steal a few minutes.’ Perhaps I have finally found my voice and writing is no longer a heinous chore that is fun only every once in a great while. Perhaps I’ve found a genre I can embrace. Or maybe my initial theory is true and I was abducted by aliens and given a new brain. I don’t care. I love to write. I’ll find the time.

 

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