Are You Struggling to Make Time for Writing?
Shifting your mindset can reignite your writing and help you establish a consistent practice
Recently, I was talking to a colleague remembering how fraught my relationship with my writing used to be. I told her how I regularly used to start out a new year, or a new quarter or new month with a pretty, new notebook and a substantial pen, and I would commit to writing every day.
I’d start with gusto! I’ve got this!! But after a week or maybe two, I’d slip to only writing every other day.
After a month or six weeks, I’d often be back to where I was before — knowing I wanted to write yet fighting to make time do so, writing as infrequently as only a time or two a month.
Dejected and disappointed
When I’d realized I’d let myself down yet again, a whole chorus of critics showed up. The Doubter: I don’t think you can do this. The Doomsayer: How many years ago did you say you wanted to be a writer? You’ll never be one. The Dictator: If you want to be a writer, you have to stop being lazy and make time for writing. Now!
My turning point was a conversation I had with someone who would later become an important teacher of mine. When I told her how much I’d been struggling for such a long time to make time to write, she suggested if I got quiet and admitted how much I loved writing (really loved it,) then perhaps I could approach making time for it not out of obligation, but out of love.
She likened it to caring for a baby; putting her down for a nap when she needs to sleep is an act of love, not dogma. The very idea of doing something out of love for writing felt like switching out a sturdy thick flannel shirt for a silk one — different, soft, luxurious.
Writing as love
So, the next day, I picked up a pen and a 59¢ spiral notebook and started, tentatively, to write. I could sense the shift. Writing felt delicious, yes. It often did, but it no longer felt like a chore, an item on the to-do or the I-should list.
I was doing this thing because I loved this thing.
I wrote without a plan, without a project, without any idea on most days what would come out on the page. I found myself writing again just because. And I wrote every day, even if on some days it was just for a handful of minutes.
What happened in those few minutes of writing was infused with magic.
So I kept coming back for more. Day after day. Week after week.
In time, I learned that creating a relationship with our writing is much like nurturing any relationship. If you love your friend and want a good friendship, you spend time with her, not because you have to, but because you want to.
You enjoy it.
It was such a simple and peaceful concept. And it worked.
I was writing.
Why not take a few minutes now?
I invite you feel into your own writing relationship. What’s it like?
Grab your pen, sit down and write. You can use these questions as doorways, invitations to consider:
What kind of relationship do you have with your writing?
What kind of relationship would you like to have?
What things are working in your relationship with your writing? And what things aren’t?
Even if you don’t struggle to make time to write, it pays to take a fresh look at your writing relationship. There are all kinds of ways writing relationships can be working and all kinds of ways they might now be.
Spend a few minutes free writing about this and see what comes up. I guarantee it’ll be a whole lot more loving than hauling out your monthly goals and putting a red slash through them.
In fact, this could be your best writing month yet.