As some of you know, this is the first time in over six years that I have taken a Sabbatical from this blog. We got word early on New Year’s Day that my brother passed away suddenly and unexpectedly shortly after midnight. It has been a rough period for our family—but also a healing period. We all dropped everything we were doing—everything we felt was important to us—and gathered in order to support one another and to honor my brother. It has been a long and difficult, yet heart-warming and healing twelve days. Thank you for your kind words and for your patience.
I plan to resume this blog with the sort of information and resources you can use—starting today. And I believe that an appropriate topic would be how to manage our writing projects when life takes unexpected turns. Because it happens. All of you reading this have experienced interruptions to the flow of your writing. Everyone of you has experienced life getting in the way of what you think you want to do—what you believe is important—the writing world you have created.
Some of you actually allow small, everyday occurrences to interrupt the writing you say you want to do. A friend calls for a coffee date, you agree to head up a committee, you are lured outside by beautiful weather or you just stop to chat with neighbors too often. Many of you get completely off track and it takes you many months or years to resume your beloved writing projects.
We all need breaks, change of scenery and connections. But, if we hope to succeed to the degree that we desire, as writers, we have to develop some important standards. Here’s my recipe for success:
• Determine exactly why you want to write—is your reason frivolous or reasonable?
• If you have trouble meeting writing deadlines (yours or those of others), schedule your writing sessions and be strict about them. Work every day from 8 until noon, for example. Get up a few hours early and write before work. (I wrote an entire book in eight months on this sort of schedule.) Write at night instead of watching TV.
• Give your writing a higher priority than maybe you do now. Get more serious about it and you’ll automatically get more writing done.
• Block everyday interruptions using every creative means you can come up with—screen phone calls, turn off your phone during your writing time, write while the kids are in school or bed, etc.
• Find a writing buddy—someone you have to be accountable to.
• Reward yourself AFTER you’ve written so many pages or you’ve been writing for so many hours. Go for a walk, enjoy a latte, do some watering out in your yard, go run your errands, etc.
Becoming a writer is more than just a physical activity. It is also a choice, a decision, a frame of mind. If you hope to establish a freelance article-writing business, you want to write stories for publication or you are working on a book, take a look at the list above to determine whether you have all of the mental, emotional and physical components in place.