Writing for Busy Bees

On finding the time to get it done, even when things don't go as planned.

I spent a lot of time this summer faffing about. I was “goo-ing” in my cocoon, and giving myself all the space in the world to rest and recover and be, before getting to the hard work of revising my chaotic novel manuscript, currently a 90,000 word salad (I think of it as a Cobb — hearty, with strong flavours and a pleasing mix of textures).

I was breezy about my time because I knew that my sabbatical could stretch on for another few months past the end of summer. I could be frugal and afford to be off work for a wee bit longer. What a luxury, to have nothing on the agenda after packing your kid off to school than your own creative pursuits. I was confident that in all that glorious free time, I’d get the work done.

Now, for a variety of reasons that I’m not quite ready to share publicly (even though you, dear reader, are my diary), I might not have nearly as much time this fall as I thought I would, and I’m starting to panic. How will I get it done?

I got the first draft done while working full time, pandemic-parenting full time, and for about nine months, caring for my dying mom, also full time. Somehow, I managed.

I’m not sure if I’m panicking now because I fantasized about this stretch of freedom, and am disappointed that it might not turn out the way I imagined? Or because I’m worried that the second draft will take as long to write as the first did, and the third draft will too, and then my 50th birthday will be behind me before the book is ready for publication and I’ll feel like I wasted two thirds of my life before getting around to the thing I care about most?

Please don’t give me any version of the Delia-Owens-was-70-when-Where-the-Crawdads-Sing-came-out speech, because I know. I know it’s never too late to follow your dreams, and that’s fine. It’s not like I’m going to quit. What else would I do with my time? Macramé?

Actually, I love macramé. Exhibit one: my dining room window.

The thing is, I’m impatient! I am a very impatient person and I want the book on my computer screen to match the one in my heart, more or less now-ish, not a year or five from now. I have a long list of other books that are already fermenting in little jars inside my mind. One is about a giant Pacific octopus, and I’ve been made aware of not one, but two recent novels about women and their relationships with octopuses, and I’m eager to get mine out before the genre is played out. (Kidding, kind of.)

Earlier this year, while recounting some story from our shared past to a couple of old friends, I said something along the lines of “I consider myself to be a patient person,” and one of my dearest friends looked at me as if I’d grown a narwhal tusk out of each nostril. She said some very tactful and kind version of “no,” and I had one of those moments, like when you catch a glimpse of yourself in a shop window or in the background of someone else’s party photo and are gobsmacked to realize that’s what you really look like.

For your reference: what I look like in my head is ALWAYS Monica Vitti in La Notte. (I’ve never looked like this in any shop window.)

Thank goodness for friends who see you as you truly are, and love you anyway. I am willing to wait. Able to bide my time. Stubborn, relentlessly so. But … not patient. Actually not at all patient.

So, the idea that this thing might take longer than I planned is a hard pill. I want to magically become that extremely disciplined version of myself who uses every minute wisely and is terribly productive and never doom-scrolls on Instagram. I’m not convinced it’s possible, but here’s the plan. I’m going to employ a few tried and true weapons in my limited arsenal, to help keep things moving:

• Waking up early to write. Those hours between 6:00a.m. and 8:00a.m. are always fruitful, if I’m conscious to experience them.

• Being less precious about writing time. Sometimes, when I have only an hour or two, I’ll think to myself “that’s hardly enough time to get into the zone” and not even sit down at my desk. That’s a great way to get nothing done.

• Accountability. I’ll either light a fire under one of my two wonderful writing groups, both of which have morphed into tired mom support groups over the course of the pandemic, or I’ll have to start a new one. I need other people to keep me on track.

• Applying for things. I recently submitted the first two chapters of my work in progress to a “first chapters” contest (I didn’t make it to the longlist, and I’m bummed about it, but glad I tried). I’m currently putting together an application for the Banff Centre’s Winter Writers Residency. It’s a long shot, but it doesn’t really matter. Striving for smaller* goals along the way keeps me motivated when the slog toward novel completion seems infinitely far away. The grant I received was a long shot too!

*Of course, getting into Banff wouldn’t be small by any measure. I just mean that polishing 10 pages of my WIP for the submission is a small task, when compared to editing the full 312.

There is a fifth thing, too. When I sit down to work on the novel, I need to resist the urge to just start writing to you instead. This newsletter has revived my creativity immensely, but dang. It’s a lot easier to write 1,000 words here on Substack, than it is to edit the 90,000 words over there, in the swamp. So, a note to self: this is a way to keep the creative flame from dying out. It can’t turn into another form of procrastination.