Kalpanaa,
winner of the WEP February Flash Fiction Challenge, Back of the Drawer, with
her work The
Dresser is here today with a guest post
Making
Writing a Priority.
Take
it away, Kalpanaa!
I’ve always
known I want to be a writer - spending the long hot summers of childhood
writing feverishly, my mother a captive audience - captured by her duty to be
encouraging. Later I wrote poems, and
stories and, like a mimosa (flower - not cocktail) hid them away after even one
not-so-pleasant comment. Feedback about my other writing didn’t cut so deep
which meant I could write often and much about education, parenting, gender,
book reviews - thoroughly enjoying the freelance life - which is the only kind
of life a writer can thrive in. It gives
you the freedom to dream and to write. You have the necessary time at your
disposal to follow a regular writing schedule instead of one that’s squeezed
between the car pool, the laundry and a night of much-needed rest. I was very impressed to hear that Dan Brown writes
all those complex novels by waking up an
hour earlier every morning and then going to his teaching job. Although I
believe that was in the early days of his
writing life and he now spends the entire day writing.
In the
aftermath of my divorce 11 years ago, my freelance writing career nosedived as
I attempted to make sense of the enormity of the changes in my life. A shocking
discovery about my past, the empty nest, death of a parent and drastic changes
to the life I used to lead, drove me
further into my introverted writer’s shell. Processing those cataclysmic life
changes meant I just didn’t have the energy to write to editors with ideas for
work. I did try though. When they
rejected my proposals, as editors do
sometimes (often) my battered psyche took it as a personal rejection of that
particular idea or article. So, I put it away quietly in a dark box. I began to
believe I would feel better in a new place. Plans to leave the country
involved finding a line of work that would make this possible. I got myself a
teaching qualification. I did continue to write blogs and stories, but I put most of it away in the dark
box, fearing rejection.
The job I’m
resigning from involves teaching English to small Korean children. It’s quite
lovely being around children, watching them progress and coming up with new
ideas to make the day fascinating for them as well as for me. The drawback is
that it leaves me with no time to write. And with no energy either. Doing the
Dan Brown thing didn’t really work for me
because I catch the school bus at 7 am - where was I going to find an hour to
write before that? I did better with writing in the evening when I was more
relaxed.
Despite
the wait (we have a 3 month notice
period) the decision has given me a huge burst of writing energy, and I’m gearing up for the A to Z
Challenge with much pleasurable anticipation. My theme this year is the Lexicon
of Leaving. It’s all about Divorce.
As writers,
we often make the mistake of putting our writing second, or even third or fourth.
Many of us grow up with the certainty that we want to be writers but then do so
many other things as well. Did that happen to you? I’d love to hear about how
you sidelined your writing. Do you have the courage to live by your writing?
I know I
didn’t honour my craft and for a very good reason. My children came first, and I believed I could always write at night when they were asleep, or not sick, or
grown up - or, like Dan Brown, early morning. People gave me books to read,
written by women writers and we marveled at how the women wrote at night, after
washing the nappies and cooking dinner. They couldn’t make writing the center
point of their lives. Perhaps I could have. I don’t know. What I do know is
that I have now made it central to my life, putting aside worries and fears
about my financial situation and other practical matters and making space to
write.
In addition
to making mental space to write, I firmly
believe we need a physical space to write in and have been much influenced by Virginia Woolf and ‘A Room of One’s Own.'
Writers are
sensitive, observant people and we don’t put only our friends, family and
colleagues under the microscope. We spend a good deal of time examining
ourselves and our work. I do. I know my faults as a writer (and as a person).
Do you know yours?
It’s
important to think what your drawbacks as a writer are - and then, of course, to work on them.
Mine are
impatience and feeling shy about my work.
The only reason my story, ‘The Dresser’ was better than others I’ve put
out there is because I edited, revised, showed it to a couple of trusted
lieutenants, implemented their suggestions and then sent it off. In working the
way I know I should, I didn’t listen to
my impatient self that wanted to send it off immediately and be done with it. I had to overcome my
reluctance to show my work to people I know well, who could judge me and make
me feel terrible instead of just tossing it into the internet. In cyberspace strangers,
will read to oohs and aahs, ignore or actively dislike my word but their
opinions won’t shatter my self-confidence and will matter only a little
provided I’m satisfied with what I’ve written.
The second
event that’s validating my feeling that I’m a writer is very practical. I’m
going to share it with you here because it has honestly made my life much
easier and more ‘writer-like.' I often
write in notebooks - because pen to paper gets me to be very creative with my
language if there’s been a long gap in the writing life. I then can’t find the
notebook I was writing in, or the page I scribbled on. I also write on scraps of waste paper and tuck them into
notebooks. Sometimes the notebooks are
too heavy to carry around resulting in situations where I have time to write,
the ideas are flowing, but there’s
nowhere to note things down. I find these frustrations killing and just can’t
scoop up the idea later in the day and write about it. I’m moody that way. It
isn’t a good thing, I know. I’m aware that discipline matters and other such
character building traits ensure success,
but I still feel annoyed and am easily distracted by a friend, a child’s story
or a cat video on the internet. But now I’ve discovered Ulysses. It’s a distraction-free writing app I downloaded on my
laptop and my phone. I write at home, and
the cloud sends it to my phone. I edit on the bus on the way to school. At
school, if I have free time I can continue to write either on my phone or on my
work laptop which also has the app, miraculously. (I know, I know - it isn’t really a miracle. Just the cloud. Which is a
miracle) Nothing gets lost. I can publish directly to my blog from Ulysses. I
can email an editor. I know it’s a shiny new toy,
and there were always ways I could have done this,
but the ease and simplicity of it have changed my life. It’s an Apple app but do check to see if they have a Microsoft
version. A good writing experience enhances your pleasure in writing. What do
you use to write? Can you recommend some writing tools?
My New Year’s
Resolution ensured I found the gaps in my writing process and sent me the
solutions. That’s serendipity for you. If you make writing your priority, everything will move in that
direction to ensure you can write. Time to write, space to write, patience,
courage and the right tools - what more does a writer need?
**
Thank you, Kalpanaa!
What more does a writer need?
That app sounds amazing.
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