August 13, 2019 • 6 mins
A listener asks how to find time for creativity when she writes for a living too
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is about how to be creative when you
already spend your work hours doing something semi creative. Having
a regular nine to five job where you write or
(00:26):
design or do something with music could sound like a dream,
but there's a reason some artists prefer straightforward day jobs.
And that was the question from a listener who recently
wrote in. She says that I work exactly full time,
forty hours though fifty when you build in the commute,
and I've been writing a novel for twenty eight years.
(00:46):
I want to write every day. But since I work
full time writing and then come home and feed and
walk the dog, work out, and get some kind of
dinner on the table, It's seven pm and I have
three hours before I need to go to bed to
get enough sleep, and I've got nothing left. I am
so tired, she says. Is it possible to get personal
writing into or am I being unrealistic. I've tried lunch breaks,
(01:10):
but they're just not long enough. When it ends and
I've just started rolling, I get upset. On the weekends.
I routinely work on my novel from seven am until noon,
or often all day, so it does get done, but
I'd like to do it daily. Sometimes I just think
about my novel as I fall asleep, kind of like brainstorming.
But is that really the best I can do? I
(01:31):
agreed that it's hard to write all day and then
write more at night. Writing is my day job, too,
and though I've written two novels, any rational analysis of
my time finds that I could have produced a lot
more creative output over the last decade or so than that.
I often take long spells between working on purely creative
stuff that I don't see an immediate economic opportunity for.
(01:52):
It's human nature to treat stuff that pays the bills
as important, and speculative stuff as well, stuff that can
be dropped when we're tired the TV is calling. But
I do think it's possible to do paid creative work
and then speculative creative work too. The first step if
our listener truly wants to work on her novel daily
(02:12):
is to lower her expectations. I'm a little concerned that
she dismisses writing on her lunch breaks because there's breaks
just aren't long enough. If her idea of the right
writing time is five hours, like the seven am two
noon stretch she gets on weekends, that's gonna be hard
to replicate daily. Instead, a good daily requirement might be
to write just one hundred words or edit for just
(02:36):
ten minutes. That's it. Those steps are so small that
they should inspire no resistance. It's pretty hard to look
at the three hours before bed from seven to ten
pm and say there's no way I can make myself
work on my novel for ten minutes. But that small
requirement will have her interacting with her creative work daily.
(02:58):
She will make some progress, and some progress is better
than nothing. Some progress also has this benefit. She will
change the story she tells herself. She is now the
sort of person who does make time for creative writing.
I think the small daily requirement will also ease up
(03:19):
on some of the guilt. Our listener is beating herself
up that she's not doing more creative writing. But it
turns out is the rare person who becomes more creative
in response to scolding. When she sets her expectations low
and then meets them, she can celebrate. She can reward
herself by doing whatever she wants guilt free. That could
(03:41):
be watching TV or surfing the web all night if
she wants. But my guess is that there will be
a reasonable number of nights when she'll feel like doing
an extra ten minutes, and then she'll make even more progress. Finally,
many people benefit from accountability. For both my novels, I
had some system in place for my book called The
Courtland Boys. I checked in with an accountability partner every
(04:04):
Friday for Juliette School of Possibilities. Well, the publisher who
had published all my nonfiction books had expressed a strong
interest in the outline, meaning a book contract was potentially
in sight. I saw a compelling reason to finish. If
our listener has been trying to write this novel for
twenty eight years, she might likewise benefit from some external accountability.
(04:26):
The most straightforward way to get a deadline and accountability
would be to sign up for a fiction writing class
at a local university. Ideally, this would be an evening class,
perhaps once a week, where she'd have to turn in
chapters and get them critiqued by her instructor and fellow students.
This would give her something constructive to do during one
of those evenings when low energy tempts her to the TV.
(04:47):
It would also provide quite a nudge to keep the
project moving forward. In our listeners case, I really think
it needs to be an in person class. I've taken
online writing classes in the past and they're great. I
found them very helpful, but I've also noticed that a
ton of people drop out. Often more than half the
class stops before the end. If our listener has been
(05:10):
struggling with getting this project going, I wouldn't want this
to happen to her. If you've made progress on a
big creative project while doing something similar for your day job,
I'd love to hear about it. How did you make
it happen? What are your tips for our listener? As always,
you can email me at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeart
media dot com. You can also email me questions about
(05:33):
your schedule or your time management dilemmas. Just let me
know if it would be okay to use the question
and a future show in the meantime. This is Laura.
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
(05:54):
You can send me your tips, your questions or anything else.
Just connect with me on Twitter, fay Book, and Instagram
at Before Breakfast pod. That's B the number four, then
Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me an
email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot
com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
(06:17):
Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
Before Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite show.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is about how to be creative when you
already spend your work hours doing something semi creative. Having
a regular nine to five job where you write or
(00:26):
design or do something with music could sound like a dream,
but there's a reason some artists prefer straightforward day jobs.
And that was the question from a listener who recently
wrote in. She says that I work exactly full time,
forty hours though fifty when you build in the commute,
and I've been writing a novel for twenty eight years.
(00:46):
I want to write every day. But since I work
full time writing and then come home and feed and
walk the dog, work out, and get some kind of
dinner on the table, It's seven pm and I have
three hours before I need to go to bed to
get enough sleep, and I've got nothing left. I am
so tired, she says. Is it possible to get personal
writing into or am I being unrealistic. I've tried lunch breaks,
(01:10):
but they're just not long enough. When it ends and
I've just started rolling, I get upset. On the weekends.
I routinely work on my novel from seven am until noon,
or often all day, so it does get done, but
I'd like to do it daily. Sometimes I just think
about my novel as I fall asleep, kind of like brainstorming.
But is that really the best I can do? I
(01:31):
agreed that it's hard to write all day and then
write more at night. Writing is my day job, too,
and though I've written two novels, any rational analysis of
my time finds that I could have produced a lot
more creative output over the last decade or so than that.
I often take long spells between working on purely creative
stuff that I don't see an immediate economic opportunity for.
(01:52):
It's human nature to treat stuff that pays the bills
as important, and speculative stuff as well, stuff that can
be dropped when we're tired the TV is calling. But
I do think it's possible to do paid creative work
and then speculative creative work too. The first step if
our listener truly wants to work on her novel daily
(02:12):
is to lower her expectations. I'm a little concerned that
she dismisses writing on her lunch breaks because there's breaks
just aren't long enough. If her idea of the right
writing time is five hours, like the seven am two
noon stretch she gets on weekends, that's gonna be hard
to replicate daily. Instead, a good daily requirement might be
to write just one hundred words or edit for just
(02:36):
ten minutes. That's it. Those steps are so small that
they should inspire no resistance. It's pretty hard to look
at the three hours before bed from seven to ten
pm and say there's no way I can make myself
work on my novel for ten minutes. But that small
requirement will have her interacting with her creative work daily.
(02:58):
She will make some progress, and some progress is better
than nothing. Some progress also has this benefit. She will
change the story she tells herself. She is now the
sort of person who does make time for creative writing.
I think the small daily requirement will also ease up
(03:19):
on some of the guilt. Our listener is beating herself
up that she's not doing more creative writing. But it
turns out is the rare person who becomes more creative
in response to scolding. When she sets her expectations low
and then meets them, she can celebrate. She can reward
herself by doing whatever she wants guilt free. That could
(03:41):
be watching TV or surfing the web all night if
she wants. But my guess is that there will be
a reasonable number of nights when she'll feel like doing
an extra ten minutes, and then she'll make even more progress. Finally,
many people benefit from accountability. For both my novels, I
had some system in place for my book called The
Courtland Boys. I checked in with an accountability partner every
(04:04):
Friday for Juliette School of Possibilities. Well, the publisher who
had published all my nonfiction books had expressed a strong
interest in the outline, meaning a book contract was potentially
in sight. I saw a compelling reason to finish. If
our listener has been trying to write this novel for
twenty eight years, she might likewise benefit from some external accountability.
(04:26):
The most straightforward way to get a deadline and accountability
would be to sign up for a fiction writing class
at a local university. Ideally, this would be an evening class,
perhaps once a week, where she'd have to turn in
chapters and get them critiqued by her instructor and fellow students.
This would give her something constructive to do during one
of those evenings when low energy tempts her to the TV.
(04:47):
It would also provide quite a nudge to keep the
project moving forward. In our listeners case, I really think
it needs to be an in person class. I've taken
online writing classes in the past and they're great. I
found them very helpful, but I've also noticed that a
ton of people drop out. Often more than half the
class stops before the end. If our listener has been
(05:10):
struggling with getting this project going, I wouldn't want this
to happen to her. If you've made progress on a
big creative project while doing something similar for your day job,
I'd love to hear about it. How did you make
it happen? What are your tips for our listener? As always,
you can email me at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeart
media dot com. You can also email me questions about
(05:33):
your schedule or your time management dilemmas. Just let me
know if it would be okay to use the question
and a future show in the meantime. This is Laura.
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
(05:54):
You can send me your tips, your questions or anything else.
Just connect with me on Twitter, fay Book, and Instagram
at Before Breakfast pod. That's B the number four, then
Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me an
email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot
com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
(06:17):
Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
Before Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite show.
Before Breakfast News
Host
Laura Vanderkam
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