I’ve had a rush of inspiration lately. I want to write, write, write all the time and I can’t, can’t, can’t.
Here’s where I’m at, fiction-wise: PEOPLE WHO KNEW ME comes out on May 24. I’ve had some marketing assignments related to the launch that are keeping me busy (more on this soon). While I was waiting for edits to my book a while back, I started a novel and I finished a first (rough) draft of that novel in November. Then I got a new idea for another novel a few weeks ago, and I’ve been playing with that one (and getting increasingly into it). I figure I may as well crank out as much new stuff as I can and then my publisher can tell me what they want for my second book (if they offer a second book deal. Fingers and toes crossed).
In a fantasy world, the entirety of my days would revolve around my fiction writing. But, unfortunately, I live in the real world. And I have a day job.
Thankfully, I like my day job. It suits me. But it’s full-time. And very busy. That means ideas swim around in my head all week, but I can’t do anything substantial with them until the weekend (goodbye, social life). I am constantly scribbling thoughts on Post-its so I don’t forget them. You should see the notes in my phone. They are bi-zarre. This is one from the other day: “Something about Korea. She finds photo in drawer.” It makes sense, trust me.
Lately, I’ve found myself lamenting the lack of time quite often. Too often. I’m becoming bitter about this lack of time, which is not good. I just read Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert and she dedicates a good chunk of the book to talking about why day jobs aren’t just necessary, but are beneficial to the creative person. She says she published 3 books before hitting it big with Eat, Pray, Love and finally quitting her day jobs. And, even then, she was hesitant. She writes, “I never wanted to burden my writing with the responsibility of paying for my life.” And: “I’ve always felt like this is so cruel to your work–to demand a regular paycheck from it, as if creativity were a government job or a trust fund.”
I relate to this so much. Frankly, it terrifies me NOT to have a day job. I love financial security almost as much as I love writing fiction. As Gilbert says, “Financial demands can put so much pressure on the delicacies and vagaries of inspiration.” Right now, if inspiration isn’t flowing, it’s no big deal. I’m not relying on it for my livelihood. If I didn’t have a day job, if writing was my income stream, that wouldn’t be the case. So, while squeezing in writing time with a day job is stressful, the pressure of writing fiction for money would be way more stressful.
Gilbert reminds us that, “You can always make your art on the side of your bread-and-butter job.” I’ve known this to be true (I’ve written several novels while working full-time), but it’s still nice to hear it from someone who is truly successful. Sometimes, I assume “real” writers would say to dedicate every hour to stories. It’s a relief to hear Gilbert acknowledge that, for most of us, that isn’t possible.
The truth, according to Gilbert, is this: “The vast majority of people have made their art in stolen moments, using scraps of borrowed time.”
Scraps of borrowed time–that’s the perfect way to describe my current writing life. I do my best to cobble together 30 pages per week. I hardly ever have a solid chunk of creative time. John Updike said you can achieve a lot, writing-wise, with just 1 hour a day. I try to get a full hour, but it’s usually ten minutes here, twenty there. I make use of whatever free minutes present themselves. I type up sentences while dinner is baking, I wake up early enough to get out a few paragraphs, I go through stacks of those damn Post-its. I’ve learned to stop waiting for the “perfect” time to write. When you’re busy, there is no perfect time.
Gilbert confirms this is all normal. According to her, I can be a “real” writer even if I have a ton of other obligations in my life. Phew.
I highlighted this section, and dog-eared the page too, for good measure:
“I once read a heartbreaking letter that Herman Melville wrote to his good friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, complaining that he simply could not find time to work on his book about that whale, because, ‘I am so pulled hither and thither by circumstances.’ Melville said that he longed for a big, wide-open stretch of time in which to create (he called it ‘the calm, the coolness, the silent grass-growing mood in which a man ought always to compose’), but that sort of luxuriousness simply did not exist for him. He was broke, he was stressed, and he could not find the hours to write in peace.”
“I do not know of any artist (successful or unsuccessful, amateur or pro) who does not long for that kind of time. I do not know of any creative soul who does not dream of calm, cool, grass-growing days in which to work without interruption. Somehow, though, nobody ever seems to achieve it. Or if they do achieve it (through a grant, for instance, or a friend’s generosity, or an artist’s residency), that idyll is just temporary–and then life will inevitably rush back in. Even the most successful creative people I know complain that they never seem to get ALL the hours they need in order to engage in dreamy, pressure-free, creative exploration. Reality’s demands are constantly pounding on the door and disturbing them. On some other planet, in some other lifetime, perhaps that sort of peaceful Edenic work environment does exist, but it rarely exists here on earth.”
So I shouldn’t complain, basically. I should suck it up, basically. I should be grateful that I have a day job that affords me financial security so I have the mental freedom to write, basically. Someone remind me of this when I’m pulling my hair out trying to finish a novel while in the middle of a product launch at work. Thanks.