Any day is a beautiful day if it includes writing (if you’re a writer). This would apply to a painting if I was a painter; sculpting if I longed to sculpt; sewing if sewing made me happy; acting if I was an actor; dancing if a dancer. If you desire to be something the simple act of doing it makes the whole world seem brighter. While, I suppose, doing something else, something without passion or real purpose, could make life seem overwhelming and dark. For me and so many writers I know writing makes me happy. Author Laura Resau (Queen of the Water, The Ruby Notebook) said it best when I interviewed her, “I have a compulsion to write. When I don’t write I get grumpy. I get headaches; I am miserable. Writing helps process experiences and if I am writing, I feel more my life is more beautiful and interesting and I am happier to be alive.”
Over the last few weeks, I have been happily playing with different forms of writing. Some days I wrote a lot and others very little. But while I was writing, I was also working on a website for non-profit, volunteering at Lighthouse Writers Workshop (Mary Karr came to town for weekend event: Writer’s Studio, benefit dinner and Craft Talk – it was fabulous with a capital F!) Interviewing for jobs and applying for others. I also had family issues, health issues, diet and exercise issues, two interviews with local Colorado writers, and a house to care for and manage and weekend jaunts to the mountains.
I also buried a friend.
Saying good-bye to someone so young (49) reminded me that we have a very limited time to enjoy this world and if writing for as little as one hour a day is required to help make that time more enjoyable then do it.
I learned in an interview with Connie Willis (Doomsday, Remake, Lincoln’s Dream) that she started doing it (writing) out of fear of being 80 and regretting never having written or never trying to be a writer. After a few short years of writing and learning to write, she finally had a story published and from that single story she went on to become one of the most popular science fiction writers of our time. Over the years she developed her writing schedule – two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. During LWW’s recent Craft Talk, Mary Karr (Liar’s Club, Cherry, Lit, Sinners Welcome) spoke about locking herself in her office for six hours a day to write – forcing herself to work until she met her quota. In another interview, this one with author Doug Kurtz (Hunter’s Island, Mosquito), he explained that when he first started writing fiction, he was young and single enough to devote 5 hours or more a night to the task of writing but since life now includes a family, he’s learned to write on the fly and to keep his work with him. He explained, “If I have ten minutes, I can make those ten minutes count.”
Writing is work – but work that can fill a writer’s soul so easily.
If you yearn to write try scheduling 10 minutes a day to devote to your writing. If at the end of the day you feel unfulfilled – up the time to 20 minutes and if at the end of day you still have a longing that hasn’t been quenched, continue to add time until you discover how much time you need to devote to the act of writing for you to feel – that the day was a beautiful day.
Writer by Writing 