Guest Post featuring Erika Marks

I’m happy to have debut author Erika Marks as my guest here this week. Her post is a timely one; whether you’re a published author, or an aspiring one, fitting writing in during the holidays can be a challenge!

All I Want for Christmas is 200 More Words: Making Progress On One’s WIP During the Holidays, And Other Urban Legends.

by Erika Marks

For those of us who are accustomed to having chunks of our work day (and nights) to write, the holiday season can mean a bit of a schedule shake-up. With out of town guests arriving, priorities change (as well they should!) and with that change means having less time to write—or maybe putting the WIP away completely.

Now we all know that stepping away from a manuscript can be a good thing–but most of us will go kicking-and-screaming, especially when we are in deep in a WIP. There’s no question that shutting off our writer’s brain is about as easy as shutting off the I-want-another-glass-of-egg-nog switch. But writing during the busy holidays need not be feast or famine. There are a few ways in which a writer can maintain their cheer and their word count.

Here are a few things I try to remember when the muse doesn’t want to take a holiday.

Carve out a temporary workspace. Part of what can be hard during the holidays is that lack of routine and structure. Now don’t get me wrong: normally, I LOVE to mix things up. But when it comes to writing, it’s a tough adjustment to make—even temporarily. If you have guests staying in a space you might usually use to write (my office is our dining table so that’s definitely out), try making a temporary workspace in another room with a door you can close (Yes, that includes closets. I’m not kidding. I’ve lived in NYC—I require very little space). Just knowing you can still have access to your work in a private setting does wonders to quell those stress bubbles that can boil up.

Leave things on a good note. As Rita Coolidge sang, “I’d rather leave while I’m in love,” and nowhere does this apply than when it comes to having to leave my manuscript for a while. I don’t know about you all, but I can’t stand to walk away from a WIP if it’s going badly. Which is why if I know things will be getting busy and writing time will be scarce, I try my best to leave my manuscript in a good place. And by good place, I mean in the middle of a scene that’s really rolling—like-mac-truck-without-breaks rolling. You’re thinking, No! How can I do that? I have to finish it! But let me ask you something: Would you rather step away with excitement knowing you are going back to a scene that is working—or finish it off in the heat of the moment only to hate where that runaway truck has gone off the road and know you have to let it sit there in flames for days? Yeah, me neither.

Keep scrap paper nearby. You never know when inspiration will strike and free moments in the thick of a busy holiday are few and far between, which means seizing them when you can. Waiting to pick up a relative, standing in line at the store, washing dishes! Keep something to write on and with nearby so you can take advantage of those fleeting moments of writing/plotting time. (I speak from experience—my purse is filled with note-covered receipts that I sift through weekly).

Make your goal for broad strokes, not polished scenes. See this “break” as an opportunity to look at the larger issues within your novel. Don’t focus on trying to work through certain scenes (you won’t be able to dedicate the time to it most likely and will just end up frustrated) but rather use the time to flesh out bigger themes in your novel. Have fifteen minutes of quiet? Thumbnail-sketch several chapters. Or take a character and consider their motivation, their emotional impact—do you need to raise the stakes for them? Think outline, not fine line.

Give yourself permission to bow out of the festivities for a few minutes here and there. The holiday season won’t come to a roaring halt if you excuse yourself from your guests for a few minutes. It doesn’t make you a lousy host/parent/spouse/friend/child if you tune out and tune in to your writing in that private space we discussed earlier.

But along those same lines, give yourself permission to take a break. As important as it is to feel that you have the freedom to pursue ideas when they strike (and rest assured, there’s a very good chance that elusive solution to your problematic ninth chapter will arrive to you the instant you sit down for your holiday feast!), it’s also important to let yourself let go for a few days. In my experience, absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder—except when it comes to putting away a manuscript for a break.

Now go have yourselves a wonderful holiday, everyone!

BIO: Erika Marks is a native New Englander who was raised in Maine and has worked as an illustrator, cake decorator, and carpenter. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband, a native New Orleanian, their two daughters, and their dog. LITTLE GALE GUMBO is her first novel.

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Coaxing the Muse

Blooming Lavendar

What time of day do you do your writing? Is it in the morning? Just as the sun is coming up, the first yellow rays streaking across the roofs of your neighbor’s homes? Or just after you see the kids off on the bus, perhaps?

Or are you a night writer? One of those folks who like to stay up late and write into the wee still dark hours of the night?

I find I prefer to write early in the morning. I get up at 5am, make myself a cup of Lipton tea with milk and sugar, trying to not slam the microwave door too hard and wake everybody else. We have a big comfortable old overstuffed chair in a corner of the kitchen; the perfect place to curl. Sometimes while I am waiting the few minutes for the water to heat and the tea to brew, I read a little from a magazine my husband and I love. The Science of Mind. It’s a spiritual magazine with daily readings. Sometimes I don’t get around to reading these until later in the morning after I’ve finished writing. All depends on my mood, and whether my muse is sleepy and reluctant, or already whispering to me.

But sooner or later it is time to take myself down the hall to my home office.

The house is dark and silent. My loved ones safe and sleeping, tucked up in their beds. My cell phone is with me; I know I may need it around 8 am when my job begins to call or text me, but for now it is blessedly mute.

As I write, the denizens of my backyard begin to stir outside my window. Sometimes I am lost in my story, fully absorbed, and the softly exuberant calls of the birds who make their home in our fichus barely penetrate my consciousness. Other times, I hear them and look up, listening during a pause in the work. There are those individuals whom I recognize; the ones who like to rise before dawn, like me, and sing the day into existence.

Eventually, I hear stirrings from upstairs. Bare feet on the wooden floors, a toilet flushing. The click of the dog’s nails and my husband speaking to him. I get up and shut off the light and twist open the blinds. My backyard is beautiful; bold morning sunlight casts long charcoal shadows across the patio, the turquoise pool reflects the potted plants perched around it’s lip; sunlight gilds cactus and Bougainville, the uplifted alien architecture of the Yucca and the cerulean blossoms of the Rosemary, covered now in honeybees.

It’s 8 am and my phone remains silent. Jim is making coffee in the kitchen. I turn back to my desk, to write some more.

 Life is good.

What time of day do you write? Do you have writing rituals? How do you coax your muse?

Time Waits for No One, Or, The Illusion that We Have No Time to Write

I have noticed an unfortunate commonality of whining in the writers’ groups I attend. Mainly, the persistent insistence, by some people, that they have no time to write. Whenever I hear that malarkey I clearly recall those times in my past when I have felt the same.

But there truly are no times in our lives when we have no time to write. There are simply times when we let the world intrude, and silence our muse. That’s something experience, and my husband, taught me to overcome.

When I began writing in my teens I would have a desire to tell some story, and I would set aside time to do it. Remember that feeling? Of having all the time in the world? Of every day being filled with hours? Going someplace quiet, away from your family and friends, and just reading, or writing?

You have the same time now, you’ve just forgotten how to use it. And you may have filled it up with some stuff that needs to be jettisoned.

I know, I know. You’re starting to mutter – what does she know? I have a full time job! Responsibilities! A family!  Well, let me assure you…I have those things too. But I’ve learned to put my art first, and to work around them.

Now, I don’t mean to say I would watch my house burn down, or not take the dog to the vet if he needed to go. There are things that must be attended to, or all hell breaks loose. But it is possible to squirrel away some time for my writing. And you can to. If you truly want to write. (There are those who simply want to have written – I can’t help those folks. Or wait, yes I can… Hire a ghost writer.)

One of the most annoying comments I hear people who are not writers make is: “I’d like to write someday, if I could find the time.” Ahrggg! This used to make me boil. (Now, the new, more tolerant me, just nods sagely.) Because, as I’ve said, I have a job (full time) a family, a dog, a house, a car that sometimes needs maintenance, a pool to be cleaned, a garden to be weeded, friends that want to have coffee, emails to read and answer, doctor appointments, groceries to be shopped for –  and yet I still find time to write. You know why? Because I AM, first and foremost, A WRITER!

Yup, I write, that’s what I do. And my family knows it. Even the dog knows it. They know my schedule. They take it serious, because I take it serious.

Here’s how it works.

First off: be sure you want to write. Do you really, really want to? Is it a burning desire that sometimes wakes you from a sound sleep with a story sounding in your head like a brass gong? Because that’s what it takes.

Next: be willing to take a close look at how you are presently spending your time.

Are you running around, willy nilly, trying to be everything to everyone? Do everything for everyone? But leaving nothing for your SELF?

Are you possibly wasting a lot of hours in front of the TV every evening? Does watching Glee or American Idol mean more to you than it should?

“But I’m too tired by the end of the day to write,” I hear you saying under your breath.

Yes, me too. That’s why I don’t write at night. My personal preference is to sleep when I’m tired. I do it instead of watching TV. I go to bed by 9 pm and set my alarm for 5 am and write in the morning. Before going to work. Before doing anything.

Here’s my morning: Shut off alarm, use bathroom, don robe and socks, make tea, sit down at laptop, write.

“But I can’t get up that early.” Well, I know a lot of writers who write at night. The average person needs 8 hours of sleep out of every 24. That leaves 16. When you choose to do it is up to you. If you want to write at night then you are going to have to save some of yourself for that time. Maybe take a quick snooze after work, then forego the TV with the family and shut yourself in your writing space, and write. (Writing spaces is another blog: one of my first places was the kitchen table, before my children awoke at 6 am. I wrote my first published story there. Another was a folding table in a storeroom. It doesn’t need to be fancy for me, just private.)

I have written while waiting for a client who showed up late. Used to be I would simmer and stew if someone kept me waiting. (Wasting my precious time!) Instead, I pulled out my trusty notebook, licked the lead tip of my pencil (ahh, you say, that explains it!) and began a story which ended up becoming one I am very proud of today.

Do you ever get stuck waiting? At the doctor’s office? In traffic? At the DMV? Have that notebook ready. Be prepared for your muse when she strikes! Take notes. Jot down a few lines to get you going when you sit down later that evening or the next morning.

Note: Dan Brown gets up and writes at 4 am. Diana Gabaldon writes from 11 pm to 4 am.

Lastly: you must train others to take your writing serious.

How does one train one’s family, and by extension the world, to take your writing time serious, you ask? By taking it serious yourself. That’s right. It’s a covenant you make with yourself. It’s as simple as that. Do it. Every day. At the same time. No excuses. Door closed. Ass in seat. Fingers on keyboard or pen in hand. Write.

You don’t wait for your creativity, It waits for you. SHOW UP. The rest is easy.

If you really want to write – if you are, in fact, a writer – you will set aside time to write. And if you don’t, can’t, won’t?

Well then, maybe you just admire those of us who are, do, will.

And I’m fine with that.

“You have the sight now Neo, you are looking at the world without time.”  —The Oracle in The Matrix

Do you have a special way of finding time to write? I’d love to hear from you. Please feel free to tell me all about it in the comments section below.