This is a story about discipline & routine...
"You can finish that later" she says. Only, there won't be a later if I don't have some scaffolding - a framework - on which to hang the shreds of my life.
Writing isn't just an idle pastime for me. It's a project that gives me some control over my own life. It's something I can work on without some waste-of-space middle manager denying me the opportunity to let my creative juices flow. Who knows when I'll get another job: it's not my decision. What have I got to feel proud about? What reason have I got to get out of bed every day?
When you start taking the odd day off here and there, why not the odd week or two? Why not have a month off, or a year? It's a slippery slope. I know not many people are reading, but knowing that I write every day does give a reason to keep coming back.
When I was writing my novel, I was touched when friends would ask where my next chapter was. It was also really hard work to catch up on my target word count when I got behind. I hate feeling rushed, too.
Of course, you can't really get behind on a blog, but my target is to write every day, not to attain a certain word count by a certain deadline. However, both disciplines are important, if you're taking a writing project seriously, which I am.
Why am I serious about a non-commercial venture that makes me so vulnerable on the public Internet? Why am I so serious about sharing my innermost thoughts and feelings every single day, without fail? Well, it's because it's the only lifeline I feel secure about. People can let you down. Stress can get the better of you. Circumstances can conspire to make your life an unliveable Hell. However, I need nothing more than a screen, an Internet connection and a keyboard, in order to ground myself; to feel content that my story's still being told, by the most reliable source: me.
Obviously, I'm an unreliable source. I can go off the rails; relapse. But, when that happens I'm acutely aware that anybody who's been reading occasionally, will notice that I've gone quiet: I'm not keeping to my routine. It's an early warning system and it's also a role; a duty. I feel a little duty-bound to write every day, in the same way you feel like you have to get up and go to work, even though you don't want to.
You could skip work - bunk off - but you won't. There's something that keeps you going and going, in whatever you do. There are people who are counting on you. What will your boss say? What will your colleagues think?
I broke the spell and I have the kind of job where I can take long chunks of time off anyway. Contracting doesn't mandate that I spend 52 weeks a year flying a desk. If my contract has ended, who's gonna tell me that I need to keep working? The boss? I'm my own boss. The downside of being in charge, is that I'm free on my own recognisance. It's up to me to structure my life: find work and try not to relapse.
I can't leave my writing until "later" or "tomorrow" because it's not some job where I'll get paid my salary anyway. In the world of wage slavery, you know your job will still be there, waiting for you. Until you run your own business, you don't really understand what an opportunity cost is. Everything can wait until tomorrow, in the world of never-ending made up jobs and make-work.
I'm not saying what I do is important per se, but it's important to me. To prioritise writing a novel ahead of looking for a job sounds like madness, but I've worked full time for the best part of 20 years, and I was in full-time education for 13 years before that. There will always be more work, or something else to study, but there's only a finite amount of time and opportunity to create something new.
While the bulk of humanity is engaged in the rote-learning of facts, regurgitation of other people's words and slavishly following rules laid down for them, there's a tiny minority who look at that entire world as absurd and ludicrous. The herd isn't going anywhere and it won't be hard to track down when I need it.
And so, for now, to keep my sanity and preserve my progress, I have to zig when everybody else zags. I have no control over when I'll get hired and what the contract will be, so to give myself some kind of stability and routine, I write.
I write every day.
Tags: #writing
