by Elizabeth Bradley
Is there an author out there who has not grappled with the inevitable obstructions and obstacles our varied responsibilities place upon us, inhibiting our ability to sit down alone to purge words. I take pleasure in learning about authors, their lives, and their writing habits. Anne Morrow Lindberg, (yes, the wife of Charles, and mother of six), would lock herself in a room away from her family, for hours and hours on end in order to write. And write she did, I know of thirteen books that she authored. As if that weren’t claim to fame enough, Anne Morrow Lindberg was also the first licensed woman glider pilot in the United States. I’m not suggesting that you lock your children out of the room you work in, at least not on a regular basis. I remember reading somewhere that at least one of Lindberg’s daughters felt rejected in the process. But, how do you legitimately deal with the-finding-time-to-work-without-neglecting-loved-ones dilemma?
Saying No to the Skeptics It seems to me that being an unpublished writer complicates matters even further. Quite often, an unpublished author is viewed as a dreamer. People doubt that a writer with no track record has the ability to produce noteworthy work; they may warn about what a slim chance the average novice author has of getting published in this day and age. Funny, how skeptics seem to enjoy pointing this fact out, they may insert the needle in a haystack cliché. Thanks a ton, the novice author may respond, go ahead and drop that particular bomb. As if it’s not difficult enough to muster up the nerve and gumption, the necessary fortitude to sit down and put your thoughts down, to re-work, edit, and re-write those same thoughts over and over. The necessity to defend one’s ambitions presents a further burden, as if there already aren’t enough duties and responsibilities to derail us. Real work. Paying work. Household chores. Pesky errands to run. Children’s needs to tend to.
Write, Write, Write And here’s the difficulty. To become a good writer, a really good writer, you must write often, and you must get as many words down on paper as is humanly possible. I’ll insert the practice makes perfect cliché. Go ahead, cringe, I’ll wait for your scorn to pass. Unless you’re retired, or an heir to a fortune, then I understand how you might believe that you’ll never find enough time.
Writing in the Eye of the Storm So, (face it, the truth is as plain as the nose on your face), you, dear creative one, will just have to learn how to write in the eye of the storm. Write while you’re waiting at the doctor’s office. Write while the roast cooks. Write during lunch hour at work: while you watch the kids play on the monkey bars, while you wait for the oil to be changed in the car, while your husband watches Tough Jobs, while your wife watches Oprah. Write as if your life depends on it. Write in a fever, and you’ll eventually train yourself to ignore the racket surrounding you. You must resist the siren call of fun and games. You must resist those nagging urges to abandon ship. Resist those nay-saying voices inside and outside of your head pleading for you to drop it, because really, what’s the point? Resist, resist, resist!
Find a Place for Your Passion I’m not suggesting that you turn your back on your significant other; nor your children, dog, job, laundry, or anyone or anything else. I’m suggesting that you integrate your true passion into your everyday existence. (By the way, if writing isn’t your true passion, you just as well could have skipped reading this blog.) Allow that heartfelt passion to bleed into every area of your life. Produce those words one sentence at a time. If you’re able to express those deepest thoughts, feelings, and ideas on a daily basis, you’ll find contentment through creativity. If you leave those deepest thoughts, feelings and ideas buried, you will eventually, someday, come to regret your fragility.
Elizabeth Bradley lives with her husband and three dogs in the foothills of The San Bernardino Mountains in Southern California. To read more, go to Elizabeth Bradley’s Bits & Bytes at: http://elizabethbradleyfiction.blogspot.com
NOTE: Elizabeth Bradley's book Boomer Tales Please Stand By is available now!
