IWSG-September

Here we are at the first Wednesday of the Month where many of us bloggers write about our hopes and fears in the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Please visit either site for more info and a list of participating bloggers, to join, or offer encouragement.

This month’s question for IWSG Wednesday is “How do you find the time to write in your busy day?”

A better question for me would be “How do you fill your day while you procrastinate on your writing?” And that’s easy for me to answer. I read. I read some more. I watch another episode of Midsomer Murders on Netflix. When I have seen all of them, I’ll find another multiple episode series. I check my three e-mail accounts, plus the account of the San Diego Writers/Editors Guild, to be sure I haven’t missed anything important. Then I check out Facebook, including my personal account, the Guild’s page, my Toastmasters club’s page, all of which I manage. And for good measure, I’ll check out the Meetup group pages for the multiple groups I administer.

Oh, and then there are meals to prepare. My husband eats meat and I rarely do, so that’s two different meals to prepare for lunch and dinner. He takes care of breakfast on his own.

And I have to find time to wash clothes at least once a week.

Oh, and I need to get in 10,000 steps each day.

And there’s that new 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzle that I just have to finish. Putting the pieces together helps clear away mental cobwebs I am convinced are blocking my neural pathways to better writing.

These are the activities I have filled my days with recently because I’ve reached the point where I have to decide whether to include some of the tough stuff in my memoir: events I’d rather forget than include or events I’m not sure my colleagues at that time will forgive me for mentioning. Including such subplots might add the tension all my writing instructors insist must be included, but my life has been more marked with incredibly good luck (nothing bad happens while I’m in town, though revolutions may be brewing in the background) so I feel including them as (minor) “inciting events” into the arc of my memoir is manipulative.

The question I know I need to answer at this point is just what message do I want readers to take away from what I write. I should have answered that question long ago, but I’ve been dragging it around with me for the past year as I write, edit, read for critique, and then rewrite.

Here’s what I’m going to do before October’s IWSG Wednesday: I’m going to reread Marni Freedman’s 7 Essential Writing Tools: That Will Absolutely Make Your Writing Better (And Enliven Your Soul) to focus attention on the planning steps I’ve been avoiding while I’ve been balancing my checkbook and entering all my receipts and expenditures into Quicken Essentials. Then I’ll apply the seat of my pants to the seat of my chair and get back to writing.