Letting Writing be Sacred.

Creating space for writing, and writing what feels true.

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The most difficult part of writing isn’t writing itself. It’s starting to write.

I cannot share any secrets with you, except the structures that work for me. And those structures don’t work 100% of the time.

This is what I know: I have always had trouble with routine and structure, and yet I’m deeply supported by routine and structure.

Last Friday, in our Inspiration Station writing group, we talked about how difficult it can be to actually write during the time you’ve designated at writing time.

Sometimes, just to make myself feel better, I remember that there was a time pre-internet, when people sat down to write and didn’t have a million distractions at their fingertips.

Then I remember that the human brain is often looking outward. What distracted us before the internet? Books, television, scenes from windows. Children asking for everything. Spouses. Maybe this is why so many famous writers were men whose wives corralled their distractions into a holding pen far away from the room where they wrote. Maybe this is why so many women writers lives less conventional lives; many without children.

Still. I don’t have children (though I’ve cared for many people’s children), and distractions abound. I need to do class work, prepare for teaching, clean my apartment, go for a walk, go to the gym, go to the doctor, respond to emails, respond to texts, sleep, eat, etc, etc.

Enough about that.

Here’s what helps.

just for transparency…

First, here’s my desk. Total chaos. Toast with soft boiled egg that it takes me three hours to eat. Timer. Another timer. Millions of notes. It’s not always like this, but it’s like this today.

Right now I am using my desk for writing, revision, and for teaching writing composition, which I do online.

For me it’s essential that the first thing I do in the morning is (after making coffee and maybe some breakfast) to sit at this desk. It’s essential for me to have already, the night before, written down what I hope to accomplish at my desk, whether it’s writing a newsletter, revising or outlining portions of my book, or moving my keyboard to make space for journaling.

The night before each morning, I write down what I want to do the next morning.

Keep in mind that it’s summer, and all of my classes (both the one I’m teaching and the ones I’m taking) are in the afternoon. So, morning is my time.

I have been trying to get myself up at my usual time of 6am, but that’s been difficult lately because my body is exhausted. So, I let myself sleep in until 7am.

Then I sit and look at my list and decide what to do.

Recently I learned a trick from someone (thank you Tara Penry) to set a timer in 15 minute increments and keep track of each increment as you’re working. For me, this has helped so much, because I tend to get down on myself when I haven’t worked enough. But I do work enough! I’m just not keeping track of it. She says she does this for all work, including reading, taking notes, etc.

I also create padding around my work time.

I’m not the only one that does this (looking at you, Unmana).

What do I mean by “padding?”

Well, I know that I need some space. I think of it like: my writing time is a bubble. But in order to enter into the bubble of focused writing, I must first enter into another bubble of settling in.

Sometimes this means stretching or doing a quick workout. Sometimes this means checking email. Sometimes it’s journaling, or looking at social media, or reading someone’s newsletter or a publication I love (like Orion).

It’s kind of like puttering, you know? Puttering around before I start the real work of writing the thing I need to write, or revising what needs to be revised.

My desk is a kitchen, my writing is the cooking. Before I can cook the meal, I must prepare the ingredients.

Or something like that.

A sitting room with a writing table, Wilhelm Amandus Beer

If I don’t write first thing in the morning, I may not write at all. And I’ll feel guilty for not writing.

Some people need to go to the gym first thing in the morning. My desk is the gym. My writing is the treadmill, or the weights, or the yoga class.

My writing is my practice. It’s what I have dedicated myself to doing every day.

Are there days I don’t actively write?

Yes.

And on those days I am gathering. Gathering scraps and notes and ideas and letting them settle in my soul and brain and psyche.

The truth is that I’m always composing.

For me, writing is a kind of music. A story is a song. A sentence is a note.

I don’t write in order to get anything.

I write because I have to.

I write to share myself.

I write to find myself.

I write to understand the world, and my place in it.

I write to understand the world, and all beings here with me.

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If you need permission to make space in your life for your writing, let this be it.

Compose your music. Paint your paintings. Create your art.

Not for perfection or someone else’s approval, but because you have to.

Because what you have to say is worthy of being said.

Because writing, when we begin with a question, does not guarantee an answer, but it does deepen our understanding of ourselves and others.

That, in itself, is worthwhile.

It’s worth making time for.

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Tell me: what are you writing? What methods do you have in place to support your writing? What does writing mean to you? (it doesn’t have to mean what it means to me).

Tell me in the comments.