Be About It

I’ve been buried in writing a book since January. This year I have made a conscious effort to complete, hone and polish a novel that has been on my mind for years.

On the 1st January, I made my excuses from my family for a couple of hours, went upstairs and made a start. Those 800 words came slowly. All of them have since been rewritten. But I put a marker down.

9 months on. I’m still going. If this book was a baby, I would’ve given birth to it by now. I’ve written it. I’ve revised it. I’ve rewritten it. I’ve edited it. Numerous drafts. Numerous iterations. Numerous ideas.

All of these things have one thing in common. They don’t get achieved without what I have termed – “arse in the chair time”.

At times, including most recently yesterday, this process has been exhausting and confidence crushing. The old cliche of not seeing the wood from the trees has been at the forefront of my mind. I’ve spent a few weeks staring at nothing but leaves and fucking twigs. Now, finally, I am starting to see sunlight peeking through them.

Today I read a story about a professional athlete, who I won’t name for various reasons. (The guy is an elite athlete but seems reprehensible in his private life.) His daughter came 4th in a tournament she really wanted to win and was given a trophy. She wanted to throw the trophy in the bin. Instead he put the trophy on her bedroom shelf so it was the first thing she saw when she woke up. Rather than something to forget, it became something to better and to improve upon.

As he said to her. “You can either cry about it, or be about it.”

We all have our down days. Days it seems too hard, too much work. Whether it’s writing or something else we strive to improve at. It’s not about avoiding those days, it’s about how you respond to them.

I’m back at the keyboard again today. I must be about it.

Time to crack on again.

Dan

Finding the Time

Many people’s perception of a writer is someone who writes full-time. Much like Ron Burgundy, these imagined writers lounge about in their studies that “smell of rich mahogany” and they “own many leather bound books”. That in itself is a wonderful image.

Most people who write would love nothing more than a room of their own to lounge about it, swirling a glass of their favourite tipple and rocking a dressing gown that would make Hugh Heffner spin in his ostentatious grave. Writing an opus using a quill and ink or a seventies typewriter.

The reality of writing part-time is much more gritty. It is an act of willpower and force. It’s a vocation and an obsession. Something squeezed in around other things. It dribbles between the need to pay the bills and family commitments. It oozes between sleep and the commute.

At home, I have no writing room of my own. I steal time at work to write. (This isn’t strictly true but I like the image.) I write on my lunch break. One hour in the twenty-four that is truly mine.

Every working day. Arse on seat. Fingers on keys. Sixty minutes. Do what you can. Whether it’s editing or writing a new draft, it happens. No excuses.

Because at the end of the day, it is time that we crave as a writer. A fancy space to do the work makes no odds if you never occupy it. Every day I carry my laptop to work and then to a nearby library. Wherever I place my laptop is my writing space.

Over the last few years I’ve learned that nothing you want will just come to you. Your boss won’t offer you time off to write a book. Your kids won’t go to bed early so you can get a few thousand words down. Life won’t bend to your writing will. Bend your writing schedule to your circumstances and be prepared to succeed.

Don’t hang yourself up on where you write. Don’t sit and wait for the muse. Don’t wait until you’ve lit fourteen scented candles and brewed the perfect cup of green tea.

Don’t wait. Write.