E.R. COOK

Life as a Part-Time Professional Writer

This year I decided I needed to kick my writing into high-gear. I had let it lapse for the last couple of years, although that was pretty necessary. Between getting our old house sold, figuring out how to negotiate a three-state move of all our stuff, and living out of camper for three months, I really didn’t have brain power left for anything else. At first I felt guilty. After all, writing is my love and passion. After I had published my first book, I had dove headlong into trying to build a brand, thinking about building a side career of bringing my stories to the public. But Life had other plans, and said “Hold my Beer”. It was hard at first to switch gears, but after a while I realized that this too was okay. That I didn’t need to beat myself up just because Life had decided to change my priorities for a time. Writing is always here, and I can always start again.

Change is not always bad though. Through this season of change, I found myself in a much better place. Through happy accident, I found myself surrounded by a community of writers. I started attending online meetings of the local writing group, people from all walks of life, all different genres, and all different stages of their writing, all with different goals. While I get a lot of of the meetings, one of the biggest realizations I had in my life was that to be a truly effective writer (even if you never publish a word) you need two things: create a space to write, and give yourself deadlines.

Creating a space means not only creating a physical space to write, it means creating an emotional one too. While I do have an office for the day job, I don’t write a lot in there. Usually I write on my couch wrapped up in blankets, or outside on the picnic table if it’s warm enough. I have a mug of chai in the winter, or iced lemonade in the summer. I play some sort of music (it depends on my mood and what I’m writing). It can be anything from didgeridoo, Tool, to classical and jazz. Just something that focuses my mind while not being super distracting, something that sets a tone or mood that either helps inspire me or matches the story that I’m writing. Yet I realized recently that creating a space isn’t just this. That I needed to go further.

Creating a space also means creating a time where you are dedicated to writing. This may seem like an odd statement but think about it. How many times have you sat down to write and something popped up? A loved one needed you. A text message came in on your phone. The dog needed out. While these may seem like tiny distractions on the surface, every one of them pops you out of your creative head space and into some other thought track. Then after the distraction, you have to pop yourself back onto your original track. Enough of these happen, and suddenly things get harder: it gets harder to remember what track you’re on, it gets harder to switch to the correct track, and eventually your ‘writing train’ just derails all together.

One of the biggest struggles in this area is when it comes to my partner. Now, he is extremely supportive of my writing and tells everyone he knows how proud of me he is. I love him for that. But he’s not a writer, and because of that he doesn’t prioritize my writing time the same. He’s a list man who can’t relax unless everything on his list is done, and he considers writing a relaxation thing. If there are things to be done, I’m just being ‘lazy’ and sitting on the couch. So, he ends up (subconsciously I believe) constantly interrupting me and making sure I’m “doing work” to satisfy his anxiety issues. I used to take it to heart, and either feel guilty or feel like there was something wrong with me for wanting to take an hour to write here and there.

Yet I realized that the problem was not with me, but how he saw and prioritized things. He was raised a certain way, with his own encoded programing, with his own struggles and traumas. He was projecting onto me his own anxiety, because he had been taught to see what I was doing as ‘lazy’. It wasn’t that he thought I was lazy, or not helping out around the house, or doing things. It was just that ‘it wasn’t time for that yet’. So, whenever he starts getting mad about my setting boundaries for my writing, I just start calmly explaining what all I am doing. I’m writing a newsletter so I can reach out to my subscribers. I’m writing a blog to reach out to people and show them my writing. I’m writing my book or short story. I’m editing so I can publish. I’m connecting with other writers so I can learn and network. You want me to enjoy my writing and sell books? These are the things I need to do, and that takes time which I am prioritizing over some other things. It’s not always perfect (depending on how nasty his anxiety monster is being on any given day), but it helped him to see how I prioritize my writing and that I do need time to just write. That its not ‘being lazy’. It’s work, just as much as any other job or chore that I have to do during my week.

The other thing that helped created a space and time was the writer’s group I joined. I started attending a weekly chat group on Saturday mornings. After a couple weeks, I started just taking the hour or two before it to write. It’s becoming my set writing time for the week. The group also has online write-ins, times where you can just come and write, with some chat thrown in to help stimulate inspiration and conversation. I haven’t gone to one yet, but sometimes having that outside intervention can help in creating a space of time to set aside to write. The more I do it, the more I find my mind and body ready to write because it is now becoming a routine.

That leaves the second necessity: deadlines. Deadlines for a traditional published author seem to be easy. Your publisher sets them. “This many chapters by X” “Get edits done by X”. But for the self-published, or just the casual writer who doesn’t want to publish, deadlines are often a major stumbling block. Not only are they something you have to set yourself, but there can be no consequences for missing them. “It’s fine, I don’t need to get this out this month.” The next thing you know, it’s six months down the road and you’ve done nothing. But this year I promised myself that I was setting deadlines. I started a monthly newsletter “THE MEWZ” to illustrate this fact. In the newsletter, I put a publishing date for my book. Now, I have other people holding me responsible. I am creating my own deadlines and pressure.

Okay, okay, I can already hear the peanut gallery “But you said above it’s okay if you miss deadlines and don’t write for a while and life gets in the way.” That’s true. I don’t do this for a living. I will always have other priorities that get in the way, like my day job that pays the bills and maintaining my house and health, both physical and mental, as well as having a loving and caring relationship with my partner. There are only so many hours in the day and so much energy I can expend. Sometimes my writing has to take a backseat to all of that.

Yet deadlines are great because they push us to prioritize what we’re doing. We’ve all spent a useless hour scrolling through the latest social media craze, or getting lost down a Youtube hole. “Hey, you have a newsletter due next month. Isn’t there a better way we could be spending that hour?”

I’m really interested to see where the year goes from here and where my writing is in December. It just goes to show that we’re never done growing and learning. There’s always something to learn about yourself, a new way to help yourself grow. I hope this blog has helped you in some way grow a little bit as a writer. Until next time!