The Catholic Writers Guild

This is week three of homeschooling for our new school year, and I’m writing more than ever.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Vacation = Less Writing.  Homeschooling = More Writing.

It isn’t a magic trick.  I realized that if I was going to meet my writing goals, I was going to have to take charge of my time and make it happen.  And since I needed to organize and take charge of the daily routine to get school done, I decided to write writing time into that same schedule. 

It worked, and I’m thrilled, and I wanted to share with you what that reality looks like, and how I made it happen:

Good Bye Internet.  You may have noticed my near-disappearance.  I’ve cut back on my own blogging, on e-mails, and on blog surfing and commenting.  I love the Internet.  It is like a giant non-stop cocktail party for writers, only you get to choose who you mingle with, and never have to be stuck in a corner with the guy who wants to tell you all about his surgery. 

But you can’t write a book while you stand at the buffet and chat.  Eventually you have to go home, and sit in your chair, and work on the book.  So I cut out a lot of my recreational reading and writing, to prioritize the serious stuff for a while. 

For me, this meant making a rule that I wouldn’t check e-mail or Google Reader or any other fun stuff until I met my day’s writing goal.  I don’t always keep this rule.  But when I do keep it, I almost always get in a good writing day.

Only one thing at a time!  I am so, so tempted to multi-task.  The kids are doing their homework, can’t I quick go write up just this one idea?  It will only take a minute, right??  NO!  No, no, no.

What ends happening is that my “quick” idea takes forty-five minutes.  And during that time, little people are coming to me to check homework, to answer questions, to explain why they can’t find their shorts . . . and I am losing my temper at all the interruptions. 

Doesn’t work.

What does work, is setting aside specific times for specific activities, and being 100% focused on that type of activity.  Now is breakfast.  Okay, now is school.  Now is lunch.  Now is clean-up.  Now is more school.  NOW we write.  Not “try to write while the kids finish breakfast”, or “try to work with the boy on math while the girls get their lunch”.  This doesn’t mean everyone is eating breakfast elbow-to-elbow at precisely 7:14, or reading one chapter of literature at 10:47.  But we do need to all be doing the same type of activity at the same time.   Otherwise it is just too crazy.

–> I keep a sheet of paper on my desk, and jot down notes about my writing ideas when they strike.  Then at writing time, I have a list waiting for me of what to work on that day.

Work the kids all morning.  You’ll notice the schedule isn’t “First, writing time.”  That’s because I don’t wake up at 5AM while children sleep for two more hours.  Once the kids are up, they are going to need me.  Proven fact.  But here’s what’s really cool: Kids don’t like to work.

–> So if I fill the kids up to their heart’s content with a morning full of school work and chores, by mid-afternoon they are ready to hide from me.  And then I can write. 

[If you have little people — my youngest is five, so pretty much a big kid — you have to wait for a natural nap/quiet time in addition.  More complicated.  Also note: I schedule 1.5 hours of writing time, in order to achieve 1 hour of writing.  “Uninterrupted” is a relative term.]

Pare down the schedule to essentials.  We have eliminated about 300 activities from our schedule.  It pains me to miss out on some of these.  But honestly, my kids are happier.  They don’t thrive on running around from place to place every day any more than I do.  They need the long stretch of uninterrupted quiet that we get from afternoons at home.

My habit in the past was to look at the calendar, and if there was an open spot, say “yes” to filling that spot.  What difference does it make if I sacrifice, say, half an hour of “nothing” time that I otherwise would have spent pottering in the garden or reading a magazine?

The difference it makes is that we all need time to rest, and to think!  Hauling kids around town is work!  If I cram the schedule full, what happens is that I don’t have the mental energy to cook dinner, or sit down and work on a real writing project, or even pray a half-decent Rosary.   The time might be there, but the person has been spent. 

And wow, it’s a lot.   Getting serious about my writing has been exciting, but it sucks up time I could be spending on something else.  At the end of any given day, I’m pretty happy if I’ve done the minimum of prayer, school, basic chores, and put something on the table for dinner.  Even exercise (which I enjoy) is hard to squeeze in, even though in theory the time is there. 

–>  You just can’t work at what amounts to a part-time job, in addition to your regular vocation, and still expect to have time free for lots of extras.  Writing is my ‘extra’.  But I love it, and love seeing my work go from ‘great idea’ to something I can submit to a publisher.

I’d love to hear in the combox what works for in your vocation, to find the time you need to meet your writing goals.