To Write or Not To Write

Writing 101, Day 9: Writing and not writing

Considering I am currently a week behind most on the Writing 101 course, I guess I fall safely into the category of ‘little time to write’ as opposed to the ‘I need a break from my full-time writing schedule’ category. I wish I did fall into the latter group of full-time writers – writers whose dedication and commitment to their practice requires them to set multiple alarms to remind them when to eat, go pee and just, well, live – those writers who write so often that it’s hard to tell where human ends and keyboard begins… I hope, one day, that is me. (The writing often part, not the physically merging into my keyboard bit…)

Cheri at WordPress asks those of us struggling to find the time to write to consider these questions:

If you could step into a machine that gave you more time, how would you structure your day? 

I am currently experiencing a busy period of my life, one which I hope will begin to settle somewhat in the New Year. This year has seen us prepare for our big move to the other side of the world in January. Due to the timings of lease ends and availability of rentals in Oxfordshire, we have had three temporary house moves in the last three months, have a fourth this weekend, and then a fifth move which will take me home to Manchester where I will spend Christmas and New Year with friends and family, all before the final move to Australia in 2016. With this in mind, I would certainly like to use a time machine, if only to tackle the mundane to-do list that comes with packing up your life. With the extra time, I would use my evenings to indulge in my favourite pastimes with more regularity rather than fleetingly. Some of those include; cooking, yoga, sketching, meditation and writing, (and hopefully dog walking, once I can convince my partner that a puppy called Spencer is exactly what we need in our lives!)

What would you write with this extra time?

For a start, I would keep on top of this Writing 101 course, making sure that I complete the daily prompts daily and not every four to five days as I have been doing. I also have a burning desire to bring my children’s book series to life, a long standing idea of mine which I am eager to finally bring to fruition, if only for myself and my own sanity. I wish to write a book to help others to heal through adversity and pain. I would quite like to explore poetry a little more since I found it to be extremely therapeutic during the recent Poetry 101 course. Finally, I’d like to begin to use this blog for the purpose that it was created; letters to my Dad xx

How do you free up time to write during times of upheaval or change?