The Write Everything – The End Of Excuses
Writers Write is a writing resource. In this post, we suggest that it’s time for the end of excuses – if you’re a writer.
The Write Everything – The End Of Excuses
The Office
I always told myself that I would be a serious author once I had a proper office. And for the first time I do. I have a real office, with a door that closes. It is a small space, but I don’t have to share it with toys and golf clubs. The irony is I still take my computer and write on the couch in the living room with the toys and the golf clubs. The clubs should not of course be in the living room, but that’s what they refer to as compromise within a marriage.
Enough Time
I always thought that when I got to quit to my job (which finally happened), I would write for eight hours a day because I would have the time to do it. Can you hear my husband laughing hysterically in the back ground? Well, I still do most of my writing at night when the kids are asleep. During the day, life intrudes and I am busy with kids and errands most of the day. (Quitting your job is a crap financial decision by the way. Sure no one tells you want to do, but no one pays you either. Salaries are good people.)
Different Equipment
I even convinced myself that I couldn’t write a word on my current computer and I had to buy a new one. I used the last of my funds to get one. Funny thing is, I still go for pen and paper when I am stuck.
Would I give my office back? Nope, its mine. Would I return to a salaried existence? Hell no. Do I want to use only pen and paper? Never. Am I writing more than ever? Oh yes. Do I love what I do? Absolutely. Is it easy? Heavens no.
The Answer
I have no discernible routine. I write whenever I can. Sometimes it’s at night, sometimes it’s at the crack of dawn.
At times, I have to leave the house and then I hole up in a coffee shop for a day. Other times I write in the car when I am waiting to pick up the kids or when I have to spend time at some horrible place that does wheel balancing. I write with pen and paper, I write on my computer, I even make notes on my phone or use the voice recorder if I need to.
Some days I even don’t write at all. But when I do, I focus on the writing. And only the writing. That’s the important part. Not the how or the when or the where.
Image by Sam Morrison from 101 Excuses Not To Write
by Mia Botha
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Just what I needed to hear. I got the office, the plan is good. I need to fuel the fire.peace.
Just what I needed to hear. I got the office, the plan is good. I need to fuel the fire.peace.
Just whatbi needed to hear.
Just whatbi needed to hear.
You’ve stepped inside my head and tipped the contents onto the web. Except I don’t have golf clubs or children or a husband. Other than those minor details, I’m exactly the same.
The need to write for me comes from ideas often outside, among people, in cafes or with randomly chosen words or titles of books. Writing can be a form of reflection or meditation, a way of explaining some ‘truth’ to me so that I can understand better the situation or the characters I perceive that I know. The inevitable notebook…or tapping out a ‘text to self’…is the means to an end, and I don’t get to choose where I get the ideas. I find that, by the time I’m sitting at my pc, the ideas are rattling about in my head…and my notebook…just desperate to be ‘down on paper’, in paragraphs on the screen.
Several years ago I read Julia Cameron’s book THE RIGHT TO WRITE, truly inspirational, and showed that writing is not just putting pen to paper, but a way of life.