Myth No. 2: You lack the time to write

Hello, writer!

Living a creative life takes practice. Most days, there are about 5 good reasons why your limited energy mighHi, writer!

Recently, a writer in my Book in a Year class mentioned that her spouse was complaining about the time she spends working on her memoir — time she worried she couldn’t spare when she first started. By getting real with herself, she’s been able to continue living her full life AND make progress on her creative work — but the road has been long, and her spouse has become frustrated.

To me, this client said, “I didn’t say anything to him about how much time he spends on social media!”

Woah, I said. Let’s consider that for a minute.

I’m as bewitched by social media as anyone, but comparing writing to social media is a false equivalency, and belittles the meaning of creative work.

So I asked her, “How does your spouse feed his creative life?”

The answer could have been “He doesn’t!” but she listed all the things he does regularly, including work with the local symphony and making music.

“If you need to make a comparison to hold your ground,” I told her, “then start there.”

Because time is not as fungible as it seems. You can’t simply give up television time for writing time, or commuting time for writing time, or social time for writing time. You can do that once or twice, sure, but eventually you’ll need something else to pull you back to your keyboard, because these other activities give and take different types of your limited energy.

Writing takes mental energy and space, which a lot of activities do not. So we can’t compare writing to television or social media or lounging in the bathtub for an hour (all activities I enjoy) because these don’t require mental space and energy.

They also don’t give our days meaning.

Lack of mental space is as harmful to our creative lives as lack of time, if not more.

Mental space might come with excess free time, but it might not. Things that crowd the creative mind might be: moving, grief, temporal stressors (planning a wedding, a big work project, a breakup), ongoing stressors (intense paid work, high baseline anxiety, existential fear, a hectic home life).

To write despite a crowded mind, we have to get honest about a few critical pieces of the puzzle. Ask yourself:

• When during the day do I have the most mental space?

• What’s stealing my mental space?

• Is my mental space temporarily hijacked, or is this an ongoing thing?

• If temporary, when might I get back some of my mental space?

• If permanently, how can I carve out a limited amount of energy that’s not impacted by other aspects of my life?

Because the simple truth is that it’s not very important how *much* time you give your creative work; it’s only important that you give it some.

Because writing is math.

If you make time for just one session a week, and keep a relatively modest word-count-per-session goal of 500 words, you’ll finish a 75,000-word manuscript in 3 years.

If you make time for 2 sessions a week and aim for an ambitious word-count-per-session goal of 1,000 words, you’ll finish in 9 months.

You don’t need to write every day, or get up with the sun, or quit your job. But you do need to set realistic expectations for yourself.

If you have more mental energy in the morning than the evening, then write in the morning. If you plan to write on Sunday mornings, do you need to have a conversation with anyone about it?

I promised not to tell you to get up with the sun, but I will tell you one time-tested truth:

If you write first thing, the day is much less likely to consume your creative time.

Writing is math. All progress is progress. Choose a pace and a schedule that’s realistic, not rigorous.

There’s more on Myth No. 2 in Write Your Novel: Chapter 2, with a guide to how to establish realistic goals given your unique obstacles.

My next post will address Myth No. 3: You don’t know enough about your story to write it.

Keep trucking,

PS. Write Your Novel launches Oct 21, 2024. If you’re considering the program but aren’t sure if it’s a good fit for you, feel free to be in touch.

PPS. WYN is a new thing for me and there will be kinks to work out with the Write Your Novel community, so I’m offering 15% off to the first 25 writers who sign up. You can register now with the code MEFIRST to take advantage of this promotion, and start right away when it opens on Oct 21.