5 Steps Back to Writing

Once, I allowed myself to do the worst thing possible for cultivating my dream of becoming a published fiction author.

I quit.

After journaling my way through adolescence and falling in love with telling stories on paper, writing became a part of my being. But when I became an adult and joined the real world, I wasn’t prepared for the new level of responsibilities that I would face, eventually slipping into a mild period of depression where I just didn’t care very much about anything.

I stopped writing, reading, playing piano, drawing, and basically every other endeavor I’d ever used to foster my creativity. I threw my whole being into the frenzy of my paid profession. At first I had a hard time shutting off the fiction and creativity, but I told myself that I’d get back to it someday when I had more time.

Then I realized that I never would have more time. 

I felt like my dreams were just out of reach.

4 Simple Truths to Balance Life and Writing

I’m a busy person. I’m sure you are too, but I mean, I’m a really, really busy person. The only thing I can think of that could make my life more hectic right now is having kids.

Not right now, thank you.

Because I’m so busy, I know I’ve got to make the most of the time that I do have, which seems like so little. There are a few things I’ve figured out to try to stretch those precious moments as far as I can and to get more words per minute out of my keyboard.

The Lucky 7 Meme Challenge

I was tagged by Christopher Waltz (He blogs here) to participate in the Lucky 7 Meme challenge.

I am so happy I could burst!

Let me start out by saying that I had seen something similar to this on another blog a while back and had decided that I would participate at some point. I was prepared to create my own thread but can’t even tell you how excited I am that someone actually tagged me first…I am elated!

Okay, so the idea behind the Lucky 7 Meme is for writers to get their work exposed to more readers. Each person that is nominated is supposed to chose seven words, seven sentences, paragraphs, pages, etc. from their work and post it to their blog. Then, they’re to link back to their blog and nominate seven more people to do the same.

Shift the Balance in Your Direction

Sometimes I feel like Clark Kent with his secret identity thing going on. I’m the type of person who gets carried away with the whole superhero idea, thinking that I can take on the world while doing this balancing act of having a full-time job, being an active church member, daughter, sister, outdoorswoman, blogger, book reader, pianist and novelist too. 

You see, by day, I’m a staff reporter and journalist, writing the news for my hometown newspaper. My secret life begins when I leave the office for the day. I become a fiction writer, pulling fantasy worlds from my head and living vicariously through the characters that inhabit them. 

Fiction is my first love, it’s my passion. I love being a story teller, sharing adventures of made-up people who live in made-up places through the written word. Someday I hope to be able to write fiction full-time. But there’s tons of other stuff that holds my interest as well and, in the meantime, I have to hold down a day job to make a living.

Sometimes, a full-time job can be a real drain, creatively speaking. But the newspaper I work at is understaffed and I wear more than my share of hats – as does everyone who works there. It’s common to work over 40 hours each week. And then there seems like there are so few hours left over by the time I get off work to do much of anything else.

I’ve been told that I’m one of the lucky ones. I get paid for crafting words, day-in and day-out. At my little newspaper, I already have readers. And the thing is, I enjoy my work and am fairly good at writing the news.

Because of this, I sometimes feel like I get a complex and have a hard time deciding how to balance everything. When I first started my newspapering job, it was difficult to get my brain to switch back and forth between the two styles. Even now it seems that I’m constantly struggling to find the balance.

But it’s not entirely impossible.

I’ve got two tips for today about figuring out how to accomplish your writing goals.

The first one is: Write. Don’t quit.

There really is no secret to writing, no magic trick or anything. It’s simply a lot of work. You’ve got to put your head down and keep on keeping on.

The second tip is this: schedule your priorities, don’t prioritize your schedule.

I feel that there is always something you can do to make time for your writing, whether that’s cutting back on the amount of television you watch or getting up earlier and going to bed later to squeeze in a few extra hours at the key board.*

*But be sure to know your limits and don’t push yourself too far. I’ll cover this top in an upcoming post.

Whatever you do, you’ve got to figure out how to shift the balance of life in your favor.

Erica Jong says, “Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.”

Although I’ve been writing since grade school, I feel like my journey is just beginning. I’m trying to learn from my mistakes and am finding that defining what those mistakes are is sometimes the hardest thing.

It can be scary to follow your talent, but oh-so rewarding too.

What struggles do you face daily with writing creatively? Do you know where your talent is leading you right now? Are you brave enough to follow it to that place of possibilities?