If you’re a writer, it’s probably a familiar scenario.
The days where you somehow manage to do anything you can to avoid sitting down at the computer and putting words on the page for your latest project.
The housework that’s been left untouched for days suddenly feels extremely important. That pile of ironing teetering in the corner is shunted up the to-do list to urgent. There are emails to reply to, admin to be done. Maybe a birthday present to buy or insurance to shop for.
It’s the perfect weather to take the dog out, or go for a run. You really need to make dinner for the family, or help the kids with their homework. There are books to read and films to watch – anything but writing.
I’ve never been the person who writes every day, or even really has a routine. I spend most evenings at the laptop, but increasingly that means planning and marketing and writing applications and submissions, rather than, you know, working on my book.
I tend to write in waves, whole chunks of time where I spend my free time writing late into the night, writing on my lunch break, thinking about my story every second. And then I don’t.
The routine I’ve been building crumbles.
At first there’s a reason: a week with events every night, in different towns, or a project to deliver at work, or a string of submission deadlines. Then a break to get over the exhaustion.
But the break stretches on, the other projects multiply. I have to blog and critique the work of others’ and pitch and plot and plan and it never seems to end. I take a day off to catch my breath, but I never seem to catch my creativity.
I doubt myself and question my commitment, and my approach. No one can change this but me. Just what am I afraid of?
There’s endless work but I’m not sure how much of it matters. Whether I’m working towards my goals or sabotaging myself before things even get off the ground.
Still, if I keep chipping away, eventually a swell of words will come. I’ll write and immerse myself in telling a story. Until I don’t, again.
But who said there was one way to be a writer? Maybe this cycle of boom and bust is my creative economy and I have to learn to focus my energy in the right places at the right times.
We can’t be productive all the time. But we can’t make excuses either; I just haven’t figured out yet which one I’m doing.