When it comes to writing, are you always engaged?
It may seem like there’s an obvious answer to this, but just think for a minute. Have you ever had a story idea, sat down to write it and… it just didn’t work? Not because the idea wasn’t good, but because you weren’t fully engaged with what you were writing about.
Time is always being eaten up by work and all the trimmings which come with life, so finding the time to actually spend writing is often a luxury in itself. How frustrating then when you have a gem of an idea but you just can’t ‘get in the zone’ to make it beautiful on paper…
With my own writing, I’m feeling a little disengaged at the minute. Just this summer, I set up my own business, which has just about taken up every spare second I might have had to dedicate to creative/my personal writing. Well, almost. Of course, when you love to write, you always find some smidgen of time in which to do it, but it becomes a little more stressful in trying to cling onto those minutes when you’re running a one-woman show.
Inspiration however, can come in any shape or form at any time of the day or night, and I was delighted to be in the middle of writing content for a website the other day when a poem just started unravelling in my head. I grabbed my notebook, scribbled it down and then resumed work. Editing will come next, but after a few weeks of wondering what my next poem should be about, suddenly, the words just came, and when that happens, you really feel engaged.
I write every day, but it’s always work-related and even the blog suffered last week – in the midst of working and then writing for my own website, it just didn’t happen. So – how can we help ourselves stay engaged with our writing?
Some tips which I found useful came courtesy of my Mslexia writer’s diary this week:
It’s perhaps something to try anyway and I may just do this myself. Hmm, where to find the time though…