Glen and Karen Bledsoe --> articles --> getting started --> The Writing Life
Articles Index: Site Index: What is it like to be a
writer? Many writers would tell you it's
long hours of hard, thankless work. They pour their
hearts out on paper, only to have their work come back
with an impersonal rejection notice again and again. It
can be heartbreaking -- but they love writing and
wouldn't dream of doing anything else. Many children's book writers
write part-time while working at other jobs. Maybe you
have a job now and wonder how you can squeeze in time to
write. If you really want to write, you'll find the time.
If you only want to have written, you'll keep on making
excuses. So how do you find the
time? One of the biggest bugaboos for
the beginning writer is trying to find the time to write.
We'd all like to practice our craft all day long with no
other responsibilities, but the kids still need fed and
the mortgage has a way of rolling around on the first of
every month. How do you find time to hold down a
full-time job, be it a paid job away from home or taking
care of the little ones at home, and still find time to
work on launching your writing career? First of all, you DON'T do it by
cutting into your sleep time. Sleep deprivation is a
modern plague, thanks to the old Puritain work ethic and
the "Working 80 hours a week and loving it!" corporate
crews of the 80's. Big corporate layoffs force the
surviving workers to work harder, to take work home, and
to put sleep on a back burner. Students from Junior High
on get the message that if they want to pass, they'd
better study long into the night at the expense of sleep.
We're becoming a sleep deprived society and we're paying
for it every time a driver falls asleep at the wheel, or
our kids are too groggy to pass their exams, or an
emergency room doctor who hasn't slept in two days makes
a bad decision. Sleep is vital to our health.
We've been taught that eight hours of sleep is enough,
yet newer studies suggest we need nine or nine-and-a-half
hours. The average American gets seven. When we're deprived of the dream
phase of sleep, our short-term memories go. We can't
remember facts for a test or a presentation. We walk into
a room and can't recall what we want there. When we're
deprived of the deeper phase of sleep, our physiology
gets out of whack. Deep sleep seems to have some sort of
controlling effect on our daily cycles of hormone levels,
temperature, and other physical functions. Convinced that you can't just
stay up extra late or get up extra early to work? Good.
So long as getting up early or staying up late will
deprive you of sleep, it's a sure path to depression and
loss of interest in your writing. Don't think you need long blocks
of time to write, either. If you can spend twenty minutes
getting down a paragraph or two, that's progress. It may
be slow progress, but it's faster than waiting for that
long block of time that never comes. Now, look over your daily
schedule. Is there any down time? Can you use those times
comfortably to fit in some writing? Consider time you
spend: Can you... But don't... What if you can write full
time? Suppose you have the luxury of
being home all day with little to do for a period of
time. Perhaps you're a student home from vacation. Maybe
you lost your job, and while you're looking for something
new, you want to fill your time. Maybe you're a very
efficient homemaker, and you get your work done in an
hour or two every morning. Lucky you, if you want to be a
writer. Now, you sit down to write. The ideas are coming.
This is great. But after a couple of hours
you're tired. You want a rest. No, you think, if I'm a
full-time writer, I have to write during working hours.
And write you do, even when you run out of things to say
and you're staring at a blank screen. Guilt sets in. You're supposed to
be writing, but you have nothing to say. You page through
the latest issue of a writing magazine, looking for
inpiration. Nothing comes. Maybe you could get ahead on a
different project if you did some research, but this is
supposed to be writing time. What's the problem
here? The problem is how you define
"working" for a writer. Setting aside six or eight
working hours a day is wonderful if you can do it, but
there are very few writers in the world who can fill ALL
that time with writing. Most are tired after four or five
hours, and that's with breaks. Just as teachers are working, and
working very hard, when the kids aren't in the classroom
(let's see YOU grade a towering stack of papers, prepare
tomorrow's art project, come up with the next week's
lesson plans, and talk to complaining parents on the
phone, all while the kids are on recess, and not feel
exhausted), writers can be working even when away from
the keyboard. Writers are working when they
are... So, plan your full-timer workday
to have about three to five hours actually at the
keyboard. Take a short break after each hour to get a
drink of water or juice (it's easy to get dehydrated when
you're absorbed in your writing). Set a timer if you have
to. After your stint is up, do something physical, not
only for the break, but to let the subconcious mind work
on ideas. Spend the rest of your working time on some of
the activities listed above. If you end up running back
to the keyboard to pound out the stuff in your head that
you just have to get out, great. If not, use the time to
do research, idea generation, or to finally clean your
desk! Recommended books: Sleep
Thieves Great
books on the writing life: Snoopy's
Guide to the Writing
Life Stephen
King: On Writing Take
Joy The
Right to Write Sometimes
the Magic Works
Stanley Coren
Free Press, 1997
Writer's Digest Books, 2002
A lighthearted look at the writing life from the world's
greatest canine writer. Illustrated with Charles Schultz's
cartoons, and with input from well-known writers.
Scribner, 2000
How Stephen King started as a writer under trying
circumstances. Near the end he describes the incident in
which he was hit by a van while he was out for a walk, a
story nearly as freaky as his horror novels. Also available
as:
Unabridged
Audio Version
Jane Yolen
Writer's Digest Books, 2005
Author of over 300 children's books, Jane Yolen gives her
views of writing and life.
Julia Cameron
Tarcher, 1999
For a Zen-like approach to writing and creativity, and for
overcoming fear, try Julia Cameron's books.
Terry Brooks
DelRey, 2003
Best known for his fantasy books, author Terry Brooks gives
his take on writing.
Glen and Karen Bledsoe --> articles --> getting started --> The Writing Life
