Guest post: 4 ways to prioritise your writing when life gets hectic
Sarah Welch, of Inkdrop Lit
Thank you to Charlotte for inviting me to write this guest post! I’m Sarah Welch, and I’m here because Charlotte and I have both noticed a something that I’m sure you’ve felt, too:
More often than not, it feels like life is trying its level best to sabotage our writing practices.
Case in point: I submitted this post to Charlotte nearly two weeks late because — no, I’m not joking — a squirrel chewed through some electrical wires at my toddler’s school last week and knocked out the power and the heat, resulting in school closures until the real electricians could get it all fixed. As a result, all of the progress I’d planned to make on both personal projects and work-related ones (like this post) got stuck on the backburner for several days. Silver lining: The kiddo and I built his first pillow fort and made his first cup of hot chocolate. A win overall.
Besides a busy mom and entrepreneur trying imperfectly to keep up a regular creative practice, who am I to be offering advice on prioritizing your writing life?
I’ve spent the last ten years as a writing coach, helping authors find ways to build sustainable writing routines that work with their busy lives, rather than overtaking them. And for the last year, on top of my 1:1 work, I’ve led a formal community of authors dedicated to supporting one another in these efforts.
What do all of the writers I’ve ever worked with have in common? They’ve persevered through curveball after curveball as they’ve strived to achieve their most ambitious writing goals.
And so can you.
Here are four strategies to try to keep your writing at the forefront of your hectic life.
Get Clear on Why You Write
There’s a reason you feel pulled to write, and I can guarantee it’s a really good one. But when it seems like everything else is more important, it’s easy to lose sight of that reason.
So when you find yourself drifting from your practice, I encourage you to start the journey back by reflecting on your WHY. Journal it, type it out in your notes app, or post it somewhere where you can see it every day. This why — this deep-seated motivation — will help you come back to the page on days when you aren’t convinced your writing is worth your time and energy.
For a little inspiration, I recommend Jami Attenberg’s essay, “Why I Write,” from her book 1,000 Words. Here are a few excerpts to get you thinking:
“I write because it’s the thing I have to offer, the sharpest skill I have. I write to make people feel less alone. I write because I want to communicate messages with the world.”
“I write because it’s fun; I take genuine pleasure in the words dancing before me on the page.”
“I write to process my shit.”
2. Set Realistic Goals
Stephen King says that, in order to be a real author, you have to write 2,000 words per day. Steven Pressfield says authors have to come to the page every day “come hell or high water.”
With all due respect to Stephen and Steven, this isn’t realistic for most writers, and these criteria don’t determine your status as a “real author.” So think carefully about what works for you. Start by taking a look at your weekly schedule: Are there three days a week where you regularly have hour-long chunks of time you can dedicate to writing? Excellent! Block those out on your calendar with recurring Writing Sessions.
Do three solid hours sound like a dream? That’s okay. I have one client who got back into a productive routine by telling herself she just had to write for five minutes every day. It’s an easy ask. Convincing yourself to write for five minutes (or to write just five sentences) is much less daunting than convincing yourself to write for two hours or until you’ve hit 1,000 words. Make that low-hanging fruit your goal, and I’d bet money you’ll find yourself overachieving more days than not.
Bonus: Outside of your goals, start making it a habit to snatch writing time whenever you can. Think about the moments you’re most apt to find yourself scrolling Instagram (guilty), and start swapping them out for micro writing sessions. Sitting in carline? Killing time between meetings? Waiting for the water to boil? A few minutes here and there will add up fast.
3. Get An Accountability Buddy
For some writers (me included), putting a writing session on the calendar isn’t always enough. When something else pops up, that time that’s “just for you” is the easiest to reassign to “more important” things. If this sounds like you, consider finding a teammate to help hold you accountable.
This could be as casual as a friend who checks in to be sure you’ve “done your homework,” or as formal as a coach you pay to keep you on track. Most commonly, though, accountability for writers comes in the form of a critique partner or writing group that will count on you to write with them, swap pages with them, and just…be there when you said you would.
Writing is, by default, a solitary endeavor. But it doesn’t have to be. For many authors, having someone else (or several other people) not only cheering them on but counting on them to meet deadlines and hit milestones is a game changer. After all, if someone else is counting on us, for better or worse, we’re more likely to show up.
4. Give Yourself Grace
Gretchen Rubin’s 2015 book, Better Than Before, is full of great strategies and tips for building habits, but I’m particularly grateful for what she has to say about stumbles. We all miss the mark once in a while, and it’s easy to beat ourselves up over it or throw up our hands and call it quits. But Rubin reminds us to give ourselves grace.
“People who feel less guilt and who show compassion toward themselves in the face of failure are better able to regain self-control, while people who feel deeply guilty and full of self-blame struggle more” (p. 164).
Believe me, I fully understand that showing self-compassion is easier said than done. To make it easier, she offers a reframe: “A stumble doesn’t mean total failure. In fact, a stumble may be helpful, because it shows me where I need to concentrate my efforts in order to do better next time” (p. 163). As my engineer friend reminded me when I made a colossal, embarrassing mistake the other day, it’s all just quality control. You’re spotting issues so you can debug the system.
When you look at your failures — your missed writing days (or weeks or months) — this way, then actually, you can give yourself a pat on the back. Now you’ve got some great data you can use to figure out what’s holding you back and how to improve your goals and your practice as you get back on the horse.
Want more inspiration for building a writing practice that works for you?
My free download, “10 Practical Tips to Build a Sustainable Writing Practice,” is part guide and part journal — with ten strategies and 20 writing prompts to help you turn your desire to write into a long-term practice that fills you up.
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