About Write On Your Time
This is a shout out to ALL the writers in ALL the ways that they exist.
What do I mean by that? I have found that writers are birthed in many different ways. Some are just born that way from the beginning. Some are born out of trauma or heartbreak. Some are created through joy and happiness or through teaching.
For me, becoming a writer was born out of the need to “escape” my life. I found that I could write stories that took me to magickal kingdoms, or places far far away. With just the flick of my wrist and my writer’s wand, I was able to create all kinds of worlds and interactions that I could feel safe in. My first professional publications were while I was a young girl in school. As I grew up and moved out on my own and began to create a life in reality that I did not need to escape from, the writer part of me only emerged during heartbreaks or times of conflict when I needed help in finding resolution or simply just processing.
When I became a mother, I began to write my first children’s book. A collection of short stories centered around helping kids through modern heartbreaks like divorce, death, mental health challenges, etc. That book was started when Krista was 3 and Shea was just a new baby. It was added to over the course of several years, and for the past 20 years or so it has sat in a drawer waiting to find the perfect illustrator - and also giving me the excuse to not start or finish anything else on my list of things to write. Procrastination, I have found, is a chapter all on its own that deserves to be studied and understood so that it can be conquered.
When Krista wrote her book it was due to a daily writing practice and then her dedicating a certain amount of time on the same day each week to show up and write. Over the course of a year she produced her book and it did not take long for her to publish it. While that time has come and gone, I still have the same “to write” list that has nothing else marked off. I still have a children’s book that needs an illustrator. I have not moved ahead. Mainly because I stay SO busy doing all the things I have allowed myself to convince myself is more important than honoring the writer within me that saved me so many years ago. Now it’s time for me to make the time and go back and honor that writer deep within myself.
I KNOW that I am not the only one that struggles with finding the time to pursue writing goals. We have met so many precious souls who suffer from the same issue. All I can see are all the amazing unwritten books, poetry, and music walking around in our beautiful minds and souls.
Krista and I have put together a weekly time slot that we can all gather and make writing a top goal, with the purpose of working on things we would like to see complete that we have on our someday to-do list, the one that seems to be taking way longer to get back to than we anticipated. We will have fun supporting each other, working on our goals with each other, and sharing with each other what our goals and dreams are.
If you are a writer of any sort and have unfinished projects, I invite you to join us on Mondays from 6 - 8 pm at the Atomic Squid and let’s dust off those projects and breathe some life into them!
