I’d never thought of dishwashing and laundry folding as writing pay offs until this morning in writing retreat class. I had to fly across several continents, take a bus and a train to learn this great tip: don’t clean your kitchen or fold your laundry before you write! Write first and then when you come to a turning point or roadblock in the work, scurry to that mundane task of scrubbing an egg-clumped pan (presumably one of your children’s who insisted they would do it when you stopped nagging, and then reneged on their promise), so your brain can actively hone into the next creative solution. No news has been better for those of us who work at home and are convinced completing every home task to finality is vital before sitting down in front of the blank page. Au contraire!
Instead of sitting in front of your laptop in dead air space thinking you are the biggest moron writer on the planet because you have run out of gas in a pivotal emotional moment, divert the attention into one task you left undone. Give your brain room to breathe, and then back you will go. New ideas will come. The task could be as simple as washing your face, or as vast in scope as lining the cabinet shelves. The point is, you need a change from thinking you are empty as a writer and getting down on yourself. In fact, ideas may come so fast, you’ll need a post it pad by that litter you are scooping. Once you have this solution or new gem of an idea, go back into the writing and make the edit or adjustment (even if it is only ten more minutes.) Or make a note and do it the next day. If you moan and groan it is impossible to think of writing when you are not writing, then you have not built the muscle yet of ping ponging back and forth and touching your work daily as a writer in some form or way.
I would LOVE to make my clients touch their work every day. In fact, I may go home with this new mantra (watch out!). I do respect the idea of a writing rhythm one must follow for their own integrity, but I am suspect at that argument. There may be resistance (said very French) to touching the work everyday because then one would have to admit they are truly a writer and that can be a big egad! for many newbie people (or me, after 30 years of this prolonged endless agony dodging my writer self.) As I am now a convert that we can constantly be working on our projects as long as we touch the work every day in some way, I may start to piss some people off with this argument. Fine. Isn’t that why you hired me?
Think for a minute about all the time you have wasted worrying and obsessing over situations and circumstances where you have zero control. You could take that brain time and put it towards what you do have control over… your writing. In fact, I think “control freak” is a fair synonym for writer. So many of us are arising from trauma we have been powerless over. Writing gives us the reins and the control. We get to say what we want when we want without judging our character. Then we turn on ourselves and look at our writing as self-indulgent mind chatter. Punishing ourselves for wasting time being writers, back we go to pairing socks! Gone is the wondrous creative essence. We divert into control in other areas of our lives that we see tangible results. How fucking bored are you of making grocery lists? Boring, boring, boring. Just come home with too many jars of pasta sauce and no pasta and say fuck it, get writing. Writing is an opportunity not to be wasted. Stop trying to control the uncontrollable and get down to writing which is actually a rodeo you can win. We are all susceptible to not being able to get into the writing brain. We have to help our brain and our writing muse, and do it every day.
I stopped professionally writing in 2011 (aside from a short stint at the Food Journal) and didn’t return until 2017. Was that a plan? Hell no, but I let the commitments as a single mom, work and getting sober take me off the path. I darned dresses, cleaned dishes, washed cars and mended boo boos but not once did I touch writing and use those opportunities to call it back. If you are sliding into the wasteland of minutia and think, I am a worthy productive human being, you are telling yourself lies to not keep writing.
Busted.
I mean if I got real with you, I have about 200 wasted hours already this year on late night or early morning IG reels looking at celebrity marriages. How embarrassing but that is what I do instead of touching my writing daily.
Two days into the writing retreat, I have already filled a notebook with tangible delicious writing tips and tools such as touch your writing daily. More to come. As well as books that I can suggest you read but honestly if you have ten minutes, write. We can become zealous students and do no writing.
When you quiet down the cat litter, the car driving, the work, the overanalyzing texts and conversations, micro conflicts, goals on whiteboards and routine absorption with how you look, you have a writer’s brain which is absorbed by… the act of writing. Of being a writer. The languid, forgetful, lackadaisical act of being a writer.
Ten minutes. Go.
** excuse typos. The hotel internet is ancient and it's impossible to do a review before send. Something else to complain about with the other writers over coffee (and more cheese!)
Thank you. This is a super helpful tip!