Where to write

I am a full time teacher. A full time mom. And a full time taking care of myself! Finding a time and a place to write is hard! Some days you have the time and the space but not the creative energy, other days you have the creative energy but not the time and the space. For so long I allowed this conundrum to convince me that there was no way I would ever be able to write anything. Writing required long, dedicated spans of time, didn't it? When I wrote my dissertation it did. But, I was being "paid" via my scholarhsip package/stipend etc to do nothing but write my dissertation. Life out in the real world is messier than that. I had to relearn not just how to write creatively instead of academically but to stop being so picky about where and when I found time to write.

When I was a kid, I loved getting snuggly in my bed and hand writing my stories into notebooks. As an adult writing a dissertation I loved 1) my favorite corner in the stacks at the UVA library or 2) my dining room table turned into research command center. As someone trying to find her creative voice again, I tried making myself write at this hour or that hour, scheduling it like you would a doctor's appointment. For people who write full time and need to produce so many words per day this is probably a good strategy. For me, no. It completely killed my creativity. I can't work like that-turn it on and turn it off at scheduled moments in time.

But my life is busy enough that I can't just stop and NOT teach my class. I can't just stop and NOT make my daughter dinner. So, I have learned to write what I can when I can. Sometimes this means during my lunch break. Sometimes this means afterschool at a coffee shop. Sometimes this means at my dining room table. Sometimes this means me straining to ignore the chaos of an indoor playground I have taken my daughter to. Sometimes this means sitting cross legged on the floor. Sometimes this means squeezing my computer next to my sewing machine and trying to ignore the chaos of my daughter playing downstairs. Sometimes this means pulling out the notes app on my phone while I watch TV and write down the scene that comes to mind. Sometimes this means me pulling out a notebook I usually keep nearby and jotting down thoughts and ideas.

Working like this I have had to embrace something that crushed my soul when I was writing my dissertation-learning to erase! Oh, erasing what you have just wrote or editing out a scene you loved but that no longer makes sense in the flow of things pains the heart! In my first book I ended up taking out ALL the scenes of my grandmother as an adult in the nursing home. I hated doing it. But I realized that it just wasn't working for the story. I had to prioritize, was the point of the story to tell my grandmother's childhood or adulthood? In my second book I almost erased all the sections of Malakh as he visits pogroms in Ukraine. I still might. But I don't want to. I haven't written enough of my third book yet to know what I might have to face erasing. But there will be something. And it will tear me up inside.

But if you are going to write you have to accept that destruction is the first step to creation.