Writing in the spaces

Most writers I know talk about the struggle to find time to write. Many aren’t full time writers, so the demands of work and daily life are understandable intrusions.

However, there are strategies that you can use. One that works for me is:
 One word at a time
 One paragraph at a time
 One page at a time
Ideas come to me in passing so, wherever possible, I leave my computer on and open at the piece I’m working on. Sometimes it’s just a page to which I can add ideas that pop into my head. It only takes a minute or two write, the word, the sentence. Over the period of a day, this adds up. It’s not the word count that is important, it’s moving the story forward. Word count is just one mechanism that quantifies progress. It doesn’t qualify it—that comes when we redraft. But, you can't redraft what you don't have. We have to persevere if we are to take ourselves seriously as writers. There are lots of reasons not to write. There are lots of reasons we don’t get to our writing. Interruptions, our own fears, others telling us we are wasting our time, the list goes on and on. For a true writer, procrastination is not a sustainable option. Julia Cameron has some insightful things to say about this topic www.theartistsway.com or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3KLocmjJwI

Floating

It's overwhelming to work out what to do with a life. This short blip of time in which we decide (and achieve) dreams, vision, goals, Shoot for the moon, someone once said. I want to shoot out there, but personally, I find it hard to navigate by the heavens. I’m lost in the Constellation of Consternation. Wondering what lies at the end of the direction I didn’t choose. I float with no direction, no control. Ending weightless. Each stage life brings a different desire, a turning from or tweaking of what is, what failed to materialise and what disappointed. I love making the plans, listening to those of others—how they decided, how they arrived, adding I must do that too! to my own list. That’s the crux of my problem. No matter how much I learn, there is more to learn, new technology to master, new thinking to embrace. Each new concept reveals untrodden paths and again I’m forced to choose, impelled by time, among the eternity of the stars.

Launching

I’ve succumbed to pressure and set up a blog. I’m now webbed, Facebooked and blogged. It’s an unfamiliar world of stretched boundaries and less privacy. Mostly it’s about being in cyberspace wondering if I really have something to say. It’s also about dealing with the anxiety of doing what needs to be done in the new world of self-promotion, networking and bringing the written word to others. I’m not brave by nature, but I’m prepared to have a go.