“A
writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without
putting a word to paper.” EB White
This
topic, “write”, emerges halfway through the 13-week plan I created for the start
of my 2015 writing life. Since this is
Chapter 5, I am only a bit behind!
During weeks one and two, the workload at my practice was considerably
light, and I had the energy to write every night when I came home from
work. I also wrote about my writing in on
a google doc of running dates. For 8
days. Then the writing about the writing
stopped. And soon after, my work
schedule increased and my daily writing frequency dipped in the other direction.
This
lull in my written output is typical when my business life gets busy. I treat
patients almost back-to-back patients for 8-10 hours a day, keep up with the
necessary documentation, communications and office needs, and return home at night
close to depletion. I need the evenings
to relax and process before I go to sleep.
My words have been spent, albeit wisely, in other efforts during the day. This can initiate several weeks of silence at
the blog before I have a little break and I have the emotional energy to write
once again.
In
the past I have accepted this rhythm, but now I want to change that pattern and
write through the busy times, too. I was
surprised this past month when I couldn’t stick to my daily plan, thinking I created
reasonable goals for myself, though I haven’t fallen as far away from writing
as usual. (In 2014, I participated in three online courses through Tweetspeak
and published 20 posts total at my blog. So far in 7 weeks of 2015, I have published 8
posts). I spent time hashing out thoughts on this with my writing partner in
our weekly chats, and refined some of my goals and expectations for my writing
life through this process.
I
am grateful for my writing partner. It’s
given me joy and encouragement to share what I am writing, and the
accountability has kept me connected to my plan. During weeks three and four, a week passed and
I didn’t have anything written to discuss, so I chewed on my barriers during
our discussion. Another week went by,
and still I had no writing to share. The
start of the fifth week I was motivated to write SOMETHING. I was stuck on a piece that didn’t seem complete,
but before my next online chat, I published it anyway (see “notice”). Even reading it now there are lines that I
would edit, but surrendering perfection allowed me to move forward.
I
know that for me to keep writing during these intense phases, I need to have
some prompts to work on, whether it’s blogging through a book, refining journal
entries and thoughts, or participating with other writer’s/groups prompts. When blogging through THIS this book, I am
provided with guidance to hone my skills, and often have a topic bubbling right
at the surface to develop. I enjoy the
notebooks of my notes that I continue to mine.
I have been writing and re-tooling some of these thoughts, even if I
don’t publish them at the blog.
Most
importantly, this week I have been evaluating how well my goals support the
vision for my writing life. Right now, I
am not writing to earn a living, but I am writing because I feel a passion to
do so and I want my writing to continuously improve. The pressure to write daily is actually
taxing my motivation to write regularly.
I have decided that each week I will look at my calendar and schedule 3
blocks of time to write that fit flexibly within my composite schedule. I am going to keep the rest of the goals as I
initially established them, and look forward to exploring the next chapters in this
second half of my 13 weeks (I can still finish “on time”).
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