Nothing Comes Easy

What do you find is the hardest part of writing?

• Ideas?  There are times when I think I'll never have another idea for a story.  So far, that hasn't happened.  Will it?  Maybe.  But ideas for most writers are plentiful.
• Characters?  Those are the fuel that power the story.  With ideas come characters.  With characters come ideas.  Those are the easy parts of writing for me. 
• Setting?  Most of us have our favorites.  Our hearts seem to find them.
• Plotting?  I've sometimes thought I will never have a plot for the idea of a story.  And then something magically happens.  The ideas, characters, setting, all come together to tell me where the story should go, what it's about, what will happen to those characters--if they haven't already told me.  Sometimes it takes longer than I'd like, but if I start struggling, I rely on writing friends for brainstorming and we put it all together.
• Writing?  The actual putting words on paper?  Unlike Pat and Joan, the actual writing is what I enjoy most.  It may not always be right.  It may take making changes, but as long as I have an idea of where I'm going, where the characters are taking me, what the setting is and the direction of the plot/story, I can write and write...sometimes to the point of writing too much.

So where's the hard part for me?  Finding the time.

I don't have an outside job that keeps me from home.  In the past, that's been true, and I quickly learned that if an idea or a piece of dialogue popped into my head, I needed to write it down.  It might not be perfect, but it's a start.  The fact is, writing while working outside the home was often easier than working from home has become.

That sounds silly, doesn't it?

You see, I have a family.  All of us do, whether it's children, grandchildren, parents, husbands, or siblings...or all of those.  They demand--and deserve--a part of our time.  Sometimes they take priority, and writing is put aside.  But there are times when I have to say no, I'm working, when I'd rather do something else. Nothing comes easy, does it?  Especially the things that reward us the most.  That includes family.

But even though I've figured out that even short blocks of time can be productive, it isn't as smooth as it could be.  My family knows that I "work" during the day and often into the night, and they respect that.  But there's still a shortage of time, especially quiet time, with no interruptions.  And sleep.  There's never enough time for that.  In my shortest bios, the words, "sleep is highly underrated" are the truth.

Would I give it up because it's sometimes difficult to juggle a life that includes constant interruptions, too many things on my to do list, a shortage of time, and days when it's hard to keep from falling asleep?  No.  Never.  And whether anyone reads what I write or not, I'll still keep writing.

No matter what we do, no matter how hard something about it might be, we keep doing it because without it there'd be a void.  We're no different than the crafters, the soap opera addicts, the sports junkies, the volunteers or anyone else who has a passion, and that includes family.  It may not always be easy, but we don't give up.  The harder something is, the more joy we have from the accomplishment of it.  After all, if everything was easy, where would be the joy in getting through it and finishing?

Give me more time, and I'll fill it to overflowing.  It's the nature of the Time Beast that lives inside me.  There's no use fighting it.  Somehow I manage to muddle through and find The End.

My Other Office

Out here in Southwest Kansas (yes, I'm a long distance member of WARA, a very looong distance member), there are a lot of miles between important places. Important as in the distance between our house, located in the middle of a wheat field, to a loaf of bread. The nearest loaf for purchase is twenty-two miles away. The bank is forty-five.

Some people think, when they get here, that there is a lot of nothing out here. They're wrong, of course, but it really depends upon your view.

Really.

The View! The sky is what we look at, it is constantly changing and has the most fascinating things in it. From dirt to jets, yes, the sky has the good stuff.

However, when it comes to writing, my little two watt brain gets stuck quite frequently and can't find the word it is looking for. When it isn't concentrating on a word or two, it is trying to figure out how my characters are going to get out of the situation I've written them in to. Then is when the distances out here really shine. That forty-five minutes it takes to drive to town for an implement part or that loaf of bread is when my little brain starts firing off all kinds of ideas. I don't scream to a stop for the cell phone--no signal anyway. Nope, it's to get down on paper that word, idea, scene that just popped into my Easy-Bake Oven brain and started cookin'.

If it weren't for the price of gas, I'd do all my writing in the front seat of the car/pick-up truck. My laptop beside me instead of paper and a cooler full of ice cold coke sittin' on the passenger floorboard. Yup, that'd be the life. Driving from hither to yon. Sometimes parking under a cottonwood tree, listening to the birds, pounding away at the keyboard until the next moment I need to start driving again. (bathrooms are far between too!) Of course the wind wouldn't blow dirt in the windows and biting flies wouldn't even exist to bother me.

But whether my imaginary office ever materializes or not, the act of driving does somehow release a part of my creativity that works on the stories I write. With ideas blossoming and problems being solved during my long drives to town, writing merely adds more reasons why I love living here.

Coming Soon: A New Year

With Christmas over, it means it's time to think about New Year's Resolutions. "I resolve to fill in the blank in 2010." But while we're all thinking of passing up anything with more than 200 calories, let's focus more on goals for the year, especially writing goals.

What are goals? Dictionary.com defines a goal as the result or achievement toward which effort is directed; aim; end. Synonyms are target; purpose, object, objective, intent, intention. Good words! Even better because they can help us make goals.

Reaching a goal takes effort.

One caution when creating a goal. Aim for goals that can be achieved. A goal needs to be within your control. For instance, a goal of selling a book isn't completely achievable. None of us can control what or when an editor or publisher will buy, but what we can do is write the book and submit it.

If you have a large goal for the year, break it down into smaller ones. Large goals, such as submitting a manuscript, should be a series of small, achievable goals.

1. Find the right publisher for your idea.

2. If research is needed, do as much as possible before starting to write. That doesn't mean that once you're into the writing you can't look up specific information you need, but knowing a little about your hero or heroine's career from the beginning can mean not having to go back and revise later.

3. For those who plot, do it now. For those who don't, and idea of the beginning, middle, and end of your book can be a big help and keep you focused.

4. Writing a book definitely requires writing pages. But what if writing 200 to 300+ pages seems like a daunting task? Break it down! It's been said countless times that if a writer writes only one page a day, at the end of a year there would be 365 pages written. That's equivalent to 91,250 words!

But maybe you aren't ready to submit a book to a publisher. What other goals might you be thinking about?

Coming up with a story idea? Ideas are everywhere! Watch the news, read a newspaper, even watching people in the mall can generate an idea. If you have an idea, but don't know how to work it into a book, try brainstorming with friends or a critique group or partner. 'What if' is great way to put a story together.

Entering a contest? Kick off 2010 with WARA's Right Hook contest in March, followed by our Flyover contest in June, and ending with our HEA (Happily Ever After) contest in November. Work on entering each of these contests throughout the year, and you may end up with a finished book by this time next year. If you're an RWA member, many chapters have contests each year. Those can range from the opening to the first chapter or even a specific type of scene.

Check the internet for more ideas on how to make and achieve your goals. You can start with tips from Renee Knowles' Do You Have a Plan. Good luck!

Carving out Time to Write

No matter what the stage of your writing career; no matter in what stage of life you are, finding time to write is difficult. I started writing when my children were three, five, and seven. Finding time meant 10 PM to 3 AM. I thought once they went to high school I’d have more time. Then it was when they left for college. They long ago established their own lives and I still have trouble carving out writing time. Now it’s my mother instead of my children. It’s health problems instead of different sports every night of the week. Life changes every day but the one constant is lack of time. Sometimes it’s like the graphic I’ve used to illustrate this post: Chisel five minute here, chisel fifteen minutes there. So what is a writer to do?

I offer a couple of basics that experience and research have corroborated for me.
1. Set your writing time at the top of the list of things to do. If it’s not important to you, it won’t get done. There will always be the lure of something else that needs done. Writing has to take precedence.

Does that mean you must do it first in your day to make sure it gets done? Not necessarily. You and your experience will answer that one. I suggest you follow your natural body rhythm. An early riser? Get up earlier than usual and write. A night owl? Carve your writing block there. Everyone’s day is different. Only you can know where best to take the time to write.

2. Organize your day so there is time. This is never easy. I seldom followed my written (who has time to write a plan you ask!) schedules exactly. Some days I wondered why I had ever bothered to think I could organize time with three kids in different school, teaching full time, wife, mother, chauffeur, etc. Murphy’s Law (What can go wrong, will) seemed to rule. But I found over the long haul that having a schedule and discipline helped. Sometimes we have to use tough love on ourselves. Email, blogs, Facebook and Twitter are all time gobblers. Set up boundaries for their use even if that means setting a timer. Also limit how many games of solitaire or spider solitaire or Free cell you play or if you play at all until page(s) are written. Tough love indeed when applied to ourselves but it will help carve out more writing time.

Writing success is 90% persistence. BITHOK—Butt in chair; Hands on keyboard. I make time for what is important to me. REALLY important. Family vies for time, the house vies for it, work gulps time, and all of these are important. But writing is a part of you. A part that demands expression and makes you whole.

Here are a few sites with some interesting perspectives on carving out writing time.
http://www.billiewilliams.com/CarvingOutWritingTime.html

http://lesbianauthors.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/carving-out-the-time-by-jove-belle/

http://www.christinaskye.com/writerscorner2.htm
http://thewildrosepress.com/publisher/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=132&Itemid=203

Please share with us the “tricks” you use to ferret out writing time in your day. Maybe one of them will help us “carve out” more writing time than we now do!