Part of my issue when discussing writing or trying to teach people who are just breaking in is explaining to them things change when writing is your job.
At the conference last weekend, for instance, I ran into someone who said if she wasn’t passionate enough about the current book to stay on track, she just abandoned it, and that was okay with her.
Maybe it is. Though how passionate you are about your work, never seems to be a measure of how good it is. There are at least four books where I had my arm twisted into writing them which are, by the numbers, some of my more successful work. (One of them is the only one that paid four-figures of royalties.) It’s more that at the intersection of your writing and your emotional state, that stopped being what you want ot concentrate on.
However, for me, the most daunting issue is all the other stuff I have to do. I rarely go cold on a book – and not on the current ones, for sure, since they WANT to be written – but after the storm, I feel guilty I’m not doing clean up. And then there’s other stuff, like laundry. (There’s always laundry, of course, but let’s say one of the cats got nervous at the wind. On Robert’s bed.) And our yard needs to be rearranged and replanted.
So… how does any writing get done?
Well, I have to get myself (back into) the frame of mind where writing is work. If I had an outside the house job, I couldn’t stay home and not work because of the laundry and the yard. So I can’t stop working for those now.
Weirdly, it’s harder to get myself in the “this is a job” frame of mind because I AM enjoying the current novels. It’s sort of like being paid to hang out on the beach sipping martinis.
But, hey, it’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. I er… suffer so you don’t have to. And you get to enjoy the fruits of my er… suffering.
According To Hoyt 
Hi Sarah,
Nice post! The point you make about not letting the other stuff in your life pull you away from your work is a good one. I find that I have to remind myself all the time about this — plus reminding those closest to me that writing time is work time, and THEY have to leave me alone. The best thing for that, I’ve found, is to keep regular hours — like a job. I don’t take phone calls or anything in the hours that I’m writing.
Oh, and deadlines help keep me on track. Definitely!
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I have to admit it’s probably even more “interesting” when writing is your second job, and writing time has to be squeezed in around a life-stealing day job.
I manage, most of the time, but sometimes it’s almost as interesting as cats being unhappy on people’s beds.
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I find in some ways I’m lucky. Writing outside my house IS my job. But I know there are days when the words won’t come, but as a journalist writing on deadline it doesn’t matter. You have to pound the words out. Ironically some of my best work as been those stories where the words wouldn’t flow and I had to wrestle with it.
Pat
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