How to Put Writing First
By: Jennie Nash
Tags: Authorship, Authors, Inspiration, Writing, Writing Tips

It is exceptionally easy for writers to put their writing last. We put it last behind our day jobs and our families, behind grocery shopping and doing the dishes, behind dentist appointments and going to the gym. It gets squeezed into the margins of our days, where it can disappear like a dream.

There are a thousand perfectly reasonable reasons why we do this (it’s an activity whose finish line is a very long way off, it’s an activity with a very low probability of big financial payout, it’s an activity that is totally antisocial, it’s an activity that is easy to characterize as selfish and indulgent, it’s an activity that probably got us into some kind of trouble when we were young and were not supposed to have our heads in the clouds or our nose in a book….) but the fact of the matter is that the people who figure out how to put their writing first are the people who finish their books.

Putting your writing first doesn’t have to mean being reckless or stupid or narcissistic, but it does require being intentional. I was reminded of this truth three times this week, each way more powerful than the last:

1.

In an Ask Me Anything podcast session I did with my friend Dan Blank (author of Be the Gateway, founder of wegrowmedia.com), this topic came up when someone asked about my thoughts for finding time to write. I think the person expected an answer about some kind of lifehack or proven method of whiz-bang time blocking, but the answer I gave was about leaving the dirty dishes in the sink. This is my big trick. I have worked at home for 25 years, during which time I have written and published 7 books and shepherded many dozens of writers to publication and launched a book coaching company, and much of that work has been built on the back of a less-than squeaky clean house.

Creativity takes compromise. You have to give something up in order to make time for your work. You have to chose to put your work ahead of something, so the question is, what is that thing going to be for you?

For me, it’s the dishes. If I stopped and did the breakfast dishes — scrub the cast iron skillet, swirl out the smoothie jar, wipe off the butter knife — that’s 20 minutes at the most productive time of my day. I chose instead to work first and leave the dishes in the sink for a time of day when I am not going to get a lot of work done. I do a 30-second rinse, but the fact is that at the end of the day when my husband comes home from his job out in the world, the breakfast dishes are usually still in the sink. With the lunch dishes. And the snack dishes. Ans it’s usually not very pretty. It’s been this way for 25 years, through raising two kids, and although I am sometimes ashamed (like when a friend unexpectedly stops by for tea or a workman who has been contracted to check the heater asks if he might wash his hands or I find that there are ants all over the honey jar), I am proud of the choice. It is one of the small compromises that I have made in order to prioritize my creative life. I don’t have a very clean kitchen (or house, for that matter — don’t get me started on the laundry), but I have published books and built a tribe of happy customers.

People don’t believe me when I tell them that I make this choice, this compromise. They laugh nervously like I must be kidding about the dishes — which is what happened on Dan’s podcast. But I’m not kidding.

I have had to defend my choice almost every day when my husband expresses dismay at my habit. He does his breakfast dishes. He would prefer that I do mine. I am sad that I disappoint him, because I love him, and I know he supports my work, and we have in so many other ways come to very easy and amicable agreements about how to live our shared lives. But the dishes are to me a stake in the ground. I grew up I a house where a spotless kitchen was the highest good, the highest goal. That is not the choice I wish to make for myself. The stake I put in the ground is for my work, not for a spotless kitchen.

2.

A day after Dan’s podcast, I got an email from Abby Mathews, my friend and host of the podcast MomWrites (a show where I coach two debut novelists through the writing process.) Two weeks ago, Abby’s husband was offered a job halfway across the country. They decided to move — which means taking two kids out of school in the middle of the school year and packing up a household of kids and dogs and chickens. (Not sure if the chickens are making the move…but there are chickens to be dealt with. I understand that one of them is named Tina Turner. You can’t just walk away from a chicken named Tina Turner…)

Abby has deadlines to turn work in to me. They are part of the deal she and I have struck around the podcast. If she misses them, the show dies. I expected that with the move, we would take a break, go on hiatus, slow down — something. But Abby’s email said this:

“The fact is that we have HUGE life changes going on at the Mathew’s house right now, and because I’ve done all the prepwork for writing, it’s set me up to be able to continue to write even though I might (literally) only have about 20 minutes a day. So [on the podcast] I want to talk about looking at writing as stress relief in a time of stress, not a chore or something that HAS to be done. I’m going to let go of `word count’ as a measure of success and just look at making progress towards my goal of finishing my first draft.”

That mindset is the mark of a dedicated writer. You can feel her resolve and her commitment. You can feel her honoring her work and herself. It may mean a box doesn’t get packed as well as it might have been, or some small thing gets lost in the move, or Abby gets a little less sleep at night. But Abby has made her choice, her compromise: she’s not backing down from the book she set out to write, even in the face of massive disruption. She’s not letting anything get in her way.

I imagine that when Abby’s book is finished and revised and edited and in the hands of her readers, she will one day do an interview in which she tells the story of how she packed up her family, moved across the country, and refused to stop writing.

3.

A few days later, I received an email from a new client, whom I shall call Angelina. She is working on my Blueprint for a Book program, which is a 6-deadline process where you lay a strong foundation for a book before you start to write. She had been waiting three months for a slot to open up in my schedule and had committed thousands of dollars to this work, and it wasn’t going well.

She had already canceled one deadline for a work emergency, and another because the holidays got in the way. She had a deadline coming up and was writing to say that she might have to push it back. Her husband had just announced that he was leaving her after a very long marriage; he was filing for divorce. But she didn’t just say, “I have to cancel.” She said, “I can try and finish at least a draft of the first chapter, and whatever else I can manage between now and then, or we can delay the deadline. Would you mind recommending what makes the most sense? I am just in a surreal fog and am not sure of what’s feasible to expect of myself.”

I find that writers usually have the answers to whatever is perplexing or baffling them; it’s sometimes just very hard to listen to our own hearts. I heard this woman begging for someone to give her permission not to quit and so (after expressing my apologies and compassion for her difficult situation) I put it to her very bluntly. I wrote, “either do it or don’t do it. By that I mean, either make the commitment and keep the deadlines to the best of your ability or wait until you can do that. Being half-assed is the worst — which is to say, sometimes meeting deadlines, going in and out of the project, making excuses, etc. It’s the worst for the writer — for their confidence, for their project and it’s frankly untenable for me on my end.”

It was harsh, but it was also true. You have to find a way to put your writing first, even in some very small way, or put it aside. It’s like Yoda said: “Do or do not. There is no try.”

Making time for your writing doesn’t have to mean 15 pages a week. It doesn’t have to mean 1000 words a day. It can mean a paragraph. A page. A character sketch. A scene outline. Just something intentionally done to move your book forward.

In my note to Angelina, I said that she should meet her deadline “to the best of your ability.” In the midst of a shocking and upsetting life event, that might not mean very much. But that’s okay. As I went on to explain, “that means turning SOMETHING in. Maybe not everything you wanted, but SOMETHING to move the project forward. So in this case — you turn in the first chapter, whatever shape it is in. And whatever of the rest of the assignments that you can manage. You honor the deadline — which is honoring yourself. It doesn’t have to be perfect and it doesn’t have to be a lot, but it has to be SOMETHING. I can promise you that this works. It’s the repeated honoring of the deadline that works. It will get you where you need to go — perhaps not FAST, but it will get you there. If this feels like what you need right now — like it will feed your spirit and your soul at a time of transition in your life — then you should definitely do it. But if it doesn’t, then don’t. Easy to say, hard to decide…”

Angelina wrote back to say that it turned out not to be a hard decision for her at all. She felt a surge of creative energy when she read my email and a clear sense that she couldn’t stop. “To stop,” she wrote, “is the end of all hope.”

If you are struggling to put your writing first, it may be time for a mind-shift. Decide what you are willing to give up or compromise or let go in order to give your writing a place of honor in your life.