WriteLife

If the words "I should be Writing" sound familiar to you, you probably understand how easy it is to become distracted.

This month has been a busy one, full of a myriad of events all vying for my attention. Some of them writing related, most of them not. I had to wake myself up out of the Christmas/New Year/holiday haze and get back to my busy life.

Despite the looming cloud of Covid-19 (again) in NZ, 2022 has been full on—somehow busier than 2021. This past month felt like one of those months where there wasn’t enough time in the day to squeeze everything in. Between starting my new job, taking on more and more writing projects, and the growing list of life admin, I wished it were possible to make a clone of myself so I could get more done.

Wouldn’t that be great? Ashley 2.0 could do all the mundane, time-consuming stuff, leaving me free to get used to my new workplace and write. It would be a much less stressful existence.

Unfortunately, given cloning myself isn’t an option, I’ve had to try and fit everything into the limited time I have. And I hate to admit it, but working on our WIP fell to the wayside.

I had been trying to write our WIP on a schedule. A thousand words (give or take) a week. It might not be fast progress, but its progress nonetheless. As the month neared the end, I still hadn’t even started my next chapter and that began to weigh on my mind. Every time I prioritised something over working on my chapter, I felt guilty.

I should be writing. I should be writing. I should be writing.

And when I did force myself to write (usually when I should have been in bed), I would find myself staring at the blank page for a while before abandoning all hope and succumbing to sleep.

I know everyone always says writing a novel is marathon, not a sprint. But writing this historical fiction novel feels more like an ultra-marathon. Just when I feel like I’m getting momentum, there is another setback. And I’m not going to lie, it’s been frustrating.  We are so tantalisingly close to the end of this book yet it feels like we might never get there.

There is some good news, though. The past weekend, I was finally able to get some rest. My family spent a long weekend at a holiday home on the coast. It was the elixir I needed. Despite it pouring with rain the whole time, and the ever-present threat of Covid ruining our holiday, I had nothing else to do but write. And for the first time in a while I was productive. I wrote two-thousand words over the weekend and have set myself up for a nice (and hopefully fast) finish.

Hopefully, I can get the rest of this chapter done soon, and be one step closer to finishing this book!

How do you cope when you struggle to find time to write? Let me know any of your tips and tricks in the comments below.

-A