Writing in the Cracks
Confession: I had all the time in the world, yet still failed to write every day
So often we tell ourselves we would do x, if only we had the time. For me, this x was writing. It has always been writing. Since I was old enough to hold a pen, I’ve loved writing stories, usually some form of fanfiction; self inserts into my favourite worlds from Narnia to Spyro the Dragon. I’d start writing them with so much passion and every intention to finish, but they would inevitably fizzle away as life encroached — as it so often does.
As a result, I have a whole hard drive brimming with half-told stories, each one a testament to the phase at which I wrote it. You can trace my thoughts and dreams and struggles through this graveyard of prose: stretching from my “I want a pet tiger/dinosaur/crocodile” infant school years, through the “I’m going to be a secret agent” junior school phase, right up to the time in high school and college spend poring over Game of Thrones fan-fiction.
Then in university, nothing. Nada. Because I didn’t have the time? No. Because I didn’t make the time — but of course I told myself the former.
My writing took a seat on the back burner as I juggled learning Japanese (as that was my degree) with volunteering at an animal shelter and obsessively practising karate. I somehow convinced myself I didn’t have any time for my stories. Not then. Translations and kata practice and hedgehogs were calling; writing could wait.
Yet the itch to create was still there, always bubbling under the surface, and so I told myself that one day, when I did have the time, I would sit down to write a whole novel, start to finish.
This sounds admirable, and so many times have I heard people say the same thing, except it’s possibly the most dangerous mindset to carry, at least for anyone who truly does want to write. In life, it cannot be a case of magically having the time, it has to be about making the time, otherwise we take the time for granted.
Take it from someone who knows.
Because the January after graduating, I was suddenly gifted all the time in the world.
You see, before my final year of university I had to have emergency spinal surgery. It was a horrible time, but after a short leave of absence I pushed through university. Much to my relief, I did, in fact, manage to graduate (with the university’s generous help, as they allowed me certain accommodations for the exams — such as having my own examination room so I could get up and pace around when sitting became unbearable, which it did after ten or so minutes) and immediately after graduating I got a job close to home as a teaching assistant.
However, although the spinal surgery had been a relative success, it also had a myriad of complications, and that January these caught up with me, landing me back in hospital having lost the ability to walk, or even move my lower body.
In the blink of an eye everything was stripped away. I had no job, no karate, no volunteering; all I had was time.
At first, I made the most of this. When it became clear that my inability to walk was not just something temporary, something I could shake off in a few days, I threw myself into writing. The second week in hospital, I ordered a Chromebook, as the laptop I had used for college and university had been on its last legs for a while and I didn’t trust it not to crash, and so from my hospital bed I began working on a story.
A story about Ancient Egypt.
This story was honestly an indulgence piece, as I adore any stories set in ancient Egypt, and in a frenzy of enthusiasm I whizzed through chapter after chapter. Then, after three months, when I was discharged from hospital and had internet access, I decided to check out some writing blog sites, which began my love affair with the theory of writing.
I lunged down the rabbit hole of writing advice, lapping up all of K M Weiland’s blog posts and finding other insight where ever I could. I was hungry to learn more about this craft, to learn everything. So I wrote, and I read, and I made notes. I was obsessive. Gosh, I do love a good nerd-out.
Then Autumn came around and with it, November. All writers know what November means, and that is, of course, NaNoWriMo. I know it’s vulgar to speak of such things, but this is where my baby was conceived. Dropping the Egypt piece, I leapt upon a new project, a YA dragon fantasy story, and poured my heart and soul into it. This was it, I just knew it. Everything inside me felt that I had finally found my story, the one I would write to completion.
So in that month I wrote the 50k words, then I put the first chapter up on Scribophile where it was wonderfully shredded, which only fired me up to make it shine more. And for a while, I was glued to my screen.
All I had in life to focus on at this point was physiotherapy and writing, and for more than a year it was incredible. I jumped into writing with both feet and dedicated so much of my time to this WIP and to learning about writing as an art, a craft, and a business.
After a year and a half, though, my enthusiasm waned.
By then I had graduated from painful walking, using two elbow crutches, to moving around a lot freer with walking sticks. At this point all I wanted was to be out in the world, not glued to a screen, and gradually I found myself writing only here and there.
So here it is, my ultimate shameful writing confession: I had all this time, but my WIP sat often untouched for days, then weeks.
I applied for volunteer positions, started climbing with a harness, went to aqua aerobics and helped out at church with the kids. My days were filling up again, and writing became once more the “when I’m in the mood” pursuit.
Whenever I saw, in the forums on Scribophile, people lamenting and asking “how do you find time to write?” I would feel guilty. Here I was, with all the time in the world, and I rarely ‘found’ the time to write any more. It had become so easy to take that time for granted, I had lost any sense of urgency and hunger.
All this time at my disposal, but the desire to write had just evaporated.
How could I show my face around fellow writers who were so desperate to write they would get up at five to squeeze a bit of writing time in before work?
What did this lack of motivation, of sticking to a schedule and getting words down, say about me as a person? As a writer?
Bit by bit I retreated from writing spaces, feeling like an impostor.
Then, this last summer, after recovering from yet another operation, I finally managed to get a job and lose the walking aids once and for all. My days filled up once more with work, seeing friends, catching up on lost time, planning my next steps (hopefully a masters degree) and, finally, the itch to write, that glorious itch rekindled.
And when it returned, boy did it return. It grabbed me by force, and it was all I could do not to jump for joy. It was back, I was back, and something inside me felt alive again.
So, these last months, I’ve thrown myself back into writing, heart and soul, and do you know what? I relish this time writing so much more now than when I had all the time in the world.
I, too, have found myself waking up at five or six, energised to write before work, and it’s thrilling. In re-discovering this hunger I once had, I’ve come to see that perhaps — for me at least — writing between the cracks is what fires me up.
Still, I’m ashamed to admit that during my time with all that time, I didn’t manage to finish my WIP.
To be fair, I made a pretty decent start: over 100k words in, with everything planned out, and most of the first fifteen chapters polished to a degree I’m rather happy with them (yes, I was that person who edited as I went, oops!), but this doesn’t change the fact I don’t have the finished product in my hands to show for the time I was otherwise out of action. Such a shame. However, I will complete it one day, and until then I’ll be the one loving this hectic, sneaky writing between work shifts.
So if I can advise anything from this shameful confession, I would say please don’t wait for spare time to jump into your lap. It’s not all it’s hyped up to be, and there is a lot to be said for writing in those little cracks of time between meetings, before work, or after everyone else has gone to bed.
In my experience, that’s how we maintain the hunger to write.
Because there’s a magic about writing when each second of that time is something we have fought to make happen. Time we have carved out ourselves. When we have truly earned each moment, we maximise it and appreciate it, and in so doing, we are able to make the most of it.
Now, this could just be me. Perhaps writing full time with no distractions would suit you far better, perhaps you have far more discipline while I, sadly, seem to run on passion, but if you’re anything like me and if you, too, find yourself thinking “if only I had all the time I wanted to write” I just wanted to encourage you that you do have the time to write, right now, and your passion may be all the better for it.
All I know is I’ve fully embraced writing in the cracks.
This may mean I’m not cut out to be a full time writer, but at least I can say I’ve found my equilibrium when it comes to life, work and writing, and that is nothing to be ashamed of, in fact, I see it as something to celebrate.
