It’s very frosty out there, as I write this.
Hope you’re keeping warm, wherever you are! And might I make a plea for the birdies? Please put some food (and water) out for them in this chilly weather. You will be rewarded, I promise you, with lots of lovely birds in your garden, once they find it!
Amongst others, we have a beautiful male blackbird, with one white feather on his side, who comes to the bird table several times a day. We’ve christened him… Whitey! Never let it be said I lack imagination.
We are gearing up for our (early) Burns Night supper this Friday (hosting it, here, for 8 people). I was going to write ‘annual’ – and it used to be – but we haven’t actually done it for 5 years (!!) so we’ve forgotten how to do it and we’re full of niggly worries like, ‘Will the haggis burst?’ (the practice one did!) and are nine different whiskies enough?!
Will 9 whiskies be enough?
So, on to the main business of the post! I thought I might write a mini-series (I’m saying ‘mini’ because it might actually stretch to two posts!) on the theme of ‘writing more’ because for most of us, I think – especially if you want to write novels – increasing our output is a constant goal.
Part one is inspired by the words of a successful writer – I think it was novelist Louise Doughty – who, when someone told her they wanted to write, answered, ‘That’s great, good for you. What are you going to give up?’
What Are You Going To Give Up?
We all have the same 168 hours a week at our disposal and once you take out time spent sleeping (50 hours or maybe more), there’s not a huge amount left!
If you’re struggling to find time to write, try spending a week – or two – logging everything you do each day. This isn’t as time-consuming as it sounds. Often we spend big chunks of time on the same thing. You might spend 7 hours sleeping, 8 hours at work, 2 hours watching TV, 2 hours on the phone, 1 hour reading, 2 hours commuting etc.
This exercise forces you to have a good, hard look at how you spend your time and can be very illuminating! (I’ve done it). Some things – like work, or elder/child care or preparing/eating meals – are non-negotiable, I understand. But what about the time you spend:
• Watching TV
• Reading
• Socialising
• Surfing the internet/gaming
• Ironing/doing housework*
• Doing nice but non-essential stuff
Could you cut down on/give up any of those?
*Kath McGurl has a great little e-book out called ‘Give Up Ironing’ – (which she did, in order to write more) – which I can highly recommend. Lots of tips and stern talking-tos about how to find more time to write.
Let’s take them one at a time:
1. Watching TV. I have all but given up watching TV, which people find strange and unbelievable but is TRUE. We do not have Netflix (*gasps!*) and watching TV is a bit of a ‘treat’ rather than something we do every evening.
We are, for example, watching (and loving!) ‘The Traitors’ but I’m not watching anything else. I catch up with the (awful) news when I’m on-line and I read the paper when I’m at my mum’s, so I am aware of what’s going on in the world, I just don’t know anything about Eastenders or the details of the Post Office scandal and to be honest, I think that’s better for my mental health anyway!
Last year, the only things I watched were: Strictly and Ghosts (on catch-up) and some of The Crown on DVD. TV is a BIG time-suck and perhaps you could be writing in the evenings instead? (Or on some evenings?) Or you could go to bed earlier, so you can get up and write before the day starts? Or use that time to prepare meals or go to the gym?
2. Reading. As writers, I’m sure most of us LOVE to read. I’d love to read more. The thought of sitting down with a cup of coffee and a book for an hour or two sounds like total bliss but I’d feel too guilty to do that unless I was on holiday.
Another quote I read recently, which resonated with me, went along the lines of, ‘Reading a book and writing a book is like the difference between attending a wedding and organising a wedding’. One is lovely and relaxing (i.e.: reading) and the other is hard work, stressful and seemingly never-ending!
And as writers, we’re always told to ‘read, read, read’, so it’s very tempting to see reading as part of the learning process but might I suggest that – if you want to carve out more time to write – you should view reading as a ‘reward’ when the work is done? (I know this is a contentious one and some of you will throw your hands up in horror at the very thought…)
3. Socialising. Not suggesting you dump all your friends (ha ha!) or never go out but look at who you spend your time with. Is it something you enjoy or really want to do? Have you got into a rut, say of always going to the pub on a Friday night and not really enjoying yourself? Could you cut down and only go once a fortnight?
4. Surfing the internet/gaming. Just like TV, it’s easy to spend hours on the internet, or (I’ve been told!), playing games on the PC. The time just whizzes by! This is an area where I waste a lot of time but I do find it relaxing, to read stuff on-line, enter competitions, interact with people on social media and so on. I just need to try to control how much time I spend doing it! Perhaps you’re the same. Using it as a reward or setting a timer, so you only allow yourself so long, is worth trying but I’ll admit, I find the lure of the t’internet hard to resist!
5. Housework. If you spend a lot of time on this, could you find more time for writing by delegating, paying someone else to do it or just giving it up? Easier said than done, I know.
I used to teach a lady who, when we talked about finding time to write, was insistent that she couldn’t sit down to write on any given day until she’d done all her cleaning (which took hours). I never went to her house but I imagined it was probably perfect.
But when you look back over your life, would you rather say, ‘I had a very clean house’ or ‘I wrote a novel’?
When JK Rowling was asked how she’d found time to write the first Harry Potter book while raising a baby alone she said, ‘I didn’t do housework for four years. Living in squalor. That was the answer.’
Not suggesting you live in squalor but you get the idea.
6. Nice Stuff You Don’t Have Time For
Over the past year or so, I’ve given up two things that I really enjoyed: teaching my Chipping Norton creative writing classes and the Steering Group of the Evesham Festival of Words.
Oh and tennis – almost – more about that in a minute.
In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have given any of them up but looking after my mum and trying to write novels, to deadlines, meant something had to give, or I was going to have a nervous breakdown!
Last year I probably played tennis 5 times, in total (and I used to play a couple of times a week) but I am determined to get back into that again this year.
Not suggesting you give up visiting that lonely old lady across the road, or that you stop exercising (very important!!) but are there things that you do – e.g: a committee role that you took on when you had more time, or volunteering in a place that doesn’t really need you, or blogging (!!) – that you could, without too much inconvenience or change in lifestyle, give up? Things that are ‘nice to do’ but not essential?
Let me know if any of this makes sense and whether you give any of it a go! Or have you already given up something (half an hour of sleep each night?) in order to write> I’d love to know!
And I’ll be back soon with Part 2 of ‘Write More in ‘24’ !
Talking of bed, I’ve bought some new bedlinen and here is the duvet cover, blowing about on the washing line. I thought it was nice and bright and ‘springlike’! 
On a more perky note, when I finally visited Chastleton House, a NT property near me, a few weeks ago (it’s a place I’ve wanted to visit for ages), there was a lovely typewriter and desk in one of the rooms. 
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