Creative Schedule

I was going to say the second truth of a creative would be work but I feel that anyone who wants to be a writer does not really consider writing to be work. After thinking more about that word, it came to me. That second truth is schedule. Unless, you have a job where someone is over you and telling you want needs to be done, sometimes it is hard to actually do something.

Life likes to throw things at you. Either it is a problem that seems more important than writing or something that is easier than writing. I was originally going to say more fun than writing, but that really is not it. It is easier because in writing you will have moments where you will struggle and so something else will seem easier. The desire to do the easy thing is always there.

So, How did I come to believe that a schedule is necessary? Well, it actually is by doing something that I don’t think anyone would say was creative. Being a housewife. Being a housewife you really need to have a good schedule if you actually want to be proficient. When I first became a housewife, as in we decided to have a child and did not want me working. I was on top of my game. It was all new and exciting. The house was always clean, dinner was always made, and errands always taken care of. Why? Because it was new, different, and I guess kind of exciting. But then life happened. I realized that I did not have a boss, so if I did not feel like doing something that day I did not do it. I came to understand that chores were not actually fun and so I did not want to do them. The result was that the house was not as clean as it should have been and my poor husband came home to no food. (Which is not fair, he works hard, long hours.) So, how did I solve this dilemma? A schedule, one that I needed to be determined to keep.

I had to become my own boss and not let myself slip. I had to use my schedule and stick to it. I had to be determined. If not, the schedule would not stick and I would go back to not getting anything done. How? I did it by making deals with myself. One of the deals was, I could not play my game until the schedule was done. Each individual needs to find their own deal that will work for them. Once that deal is made, you can not give in. Once I was determined to keep the schedule, I need to find one that worked for me.

Now this is the interesting part. We all are individuals and what works for one person might not work for the other. It has taken me several years to nail down that schedule. I started out with one that I made myself. It did not work. I went online searching for other schedules and then tried them out. Some were just too intense for me where I felt like that was all I ever did. Some had blind spots to where certain things would not get done. After so many attempts that I can not even count them, I finally came to a schedule that works for me. But it took time, lots of it, to get to a good one. How does this apply to writing? Easy. One, If you don’t have a schedule it will not happen. Two, start immediately to find the schedule that works for you because it might take a while before you perfect it.