the craft. the time to write.
I love the moments of collective consciousness that seem to come together to hammer home the same message. Here I was gearing up to write to you about how there will never be random stretches of time to write, and that message pretty much came up in our first session here in Italy. I’d recently shared on the PTW Twitter:
“The space to write has to be cultivated. Rarely do we have the time.”
I write to you from Capannori, a town right outside of Lucca and Kwame Dawes opened his lecture poking a bit at the unsustainability of things like fancy writing retreats in Italy. Now, while you could possibly take offense, the fact of the matter is, he’s absolutely right. I am not always going to be able to escape to a small town in Italy to finish each project. It’s a miracle I’m here in the first place. Specifically, as marginalized writers, the chances are even more slim. So how do we build sustainable writing practices to get the ish done?
Personally, I think the first step is deciding that it’s important. Listen, even as a traditionally published author, there are literally no guarantees that anything I’m working on will land, well, anywhere. There is a risk factor involved here, in deciding that I’m going to spend years of my life on a book that may or may not sell. I have a whole full-time job that quite frankly is much more sustaining than writing, and if I didn’t think that there was some type of bigger calling for my life in literature, I’d probably be just fine to focus on that instead of the highly competitive and somewhat convoluted and elusive process of publishing. I’ve decided that writing is much too important to me to think that I could somehow do anything else.
Once we’ve made the decision, great, now we have to figure out how the heck we are going to make time for this delusion of being a writer. Between children, partners, families, jobs, cooking, laundry, all these other things that take precedence over our ability to put words onto the page. I’m a big advocate of using the time you have. Frankly, I’m not a writer that needs long stretches of time to write because I'm GOING to get distracted. Everyone is different in that way, but if you don’t have that kind of sprawling time, you will be making excuses forever instead of ever getting to the thing you hope to write.
We’ve romanticized the idea of being a writer in many ways. I know I certainly have. Like did you see Toni Morrison’s lake house in The Pieces I Am? I want to be sitting by the lake watching a phantom lady come out of the water as I write. But the reality is, before there was a lake house, there was Ms. Morrison, editor at Scholastic and mother of two. There was no time. She made the time to carve out The Bluest Eye in the midst of a lot of other things happening in the world. This is the story of many other writers.
It’s honestly that simple. We have to cultivate a space that allows us to get to work. For some of us, it may be hitting that coffee shop every now and again. I know I live in a two-bedroom apartment that feels like I’m suffocating at times. Just changing my surroundings for a few hours helps. Maybe it’s closing your bedroom door. Having a discussion with your family that if the red light is on, don’t bother Mommy. I don’t know your particular circumstance, but I’ve come to know that protecting my writing time is one of the most important things I need to do in my life right now.
There are books that need to be written. Essays that need to explore, challenge, and probe. Nonfiction books that need to encourage others. Characters are waiting to be developed. If you are waiting for the time, you are going to be waiting for the rest of your life.
We try to be gentle here and make sure that we’re always leading with love, but I want this for you this year. I want you to be talking about the work that you completed this year and not the work that you still hope to do. It’s our reasonable service, when given gifts, to use them. Your writing is an offering to this world. Don’t be stingy.
Your Coffee Break Magazine is looking for new writers to join their team on a freelance basis. We cover a wide range of sectors. Interested in hearing more? Please send me an email: charlotte@yourcoffeebreak.co.uk.
Submissions for Issue 11, Autumn 2024 are now open until midnight on 31 August 2024. We expect to publish Issue 11 in late October 2024.
The Research and Radio Fellowship at HRN is accepting applications.Are you a food enthusiast who loves talking about food? Are you a food writer looking to turn your words into stories that advocate for food equity and sustainability? Are you someone who wants to share your culinary traditions and heritage with the world?
