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On the Priority Scale, is Writing a 1 or a 10?

As I sat down to write this, I automatically felt like there must be something I’d forgotten to do. How could I have time to write this afternoon when I didn’t yesterday? What am I missing? What should I be doing instead of writing?

Now it’s a holiday today, so that explains the extra free time. But it doesn’t explain the nagging guilt. Yes, I’m caught up on laundry. I’ve got a busy week starting tomorrow, though, shouldn’t I get a little ahead? Maybe wash some towels? Change the sheets on my son’s bed? Or there are the 800 pictures on my digital camera. I haven’t printed or deleted a single one since I got the camera last Christmas. My relatives think the kids have stopped growing. My mother-in-law has waited over eight months for pictures of the addition we put on our house. Don’t I care that I am neglecting my picture duties again?

Or how about the school talent show? It’s not until May, but I have a planning meeting coming up. Shouldn’t I be planning?

Why is it that so often everything else seems more important than my writing?

I know the answer. Other things seem more important because I let them. There are times when I make writing a priority, like when I doing a writing challenge, or face a deadline. The words come first and everyone sleeps on dirty sheets. So far, no one has died from my periods of housekeeping laxity. But putting the writing first shouldn’t be a “special” event. I have been a professional writer for more than fifteen years. I know writing, even writing like this that isn’t under contract and doesn’t pay a dime, has to come first on a regular basis.

Admittedly, a crying child comes first. A child who needs to be driven to jump rope practice or a basketball game comes second. And then writing. Other things can wait. Laundry does not go stale. Pictures are not an essential element of my life.

Writing is. And if I remember that, then I should be able to keep the guilt at bay and make time to do what I need to do before it’s time to drive to another basketball game.

Editing is in My Future

Working on my second mystery in the Karen Maxwell series, I felt unjustifiably relieved when I finished the first draft and moved on to the editing and rewriting phase. I say unjustifiably because there was no reason whatsoever for me to feel relieved. Writing the first draft is actually the easy part. It’s the revision that’s really tough.

I don’t mind changing words, though sometimes that can be a bit tedious. The real problem I have is with changing the story. I seem to have this sort of Pontius Pilate attitude toward my creation:  What I have written, I have written. That’s the way it happened. I can’t imagine what would happen if Karen went on a date in the second scene because that didn’t happen. At least not in my mind. And what I have a hard time remembering is that it is all in my mind. It’s all fiction. It can change.

I guess it seems to me that trying to change what happened in the story (after I’ve written a first draft) is like trying to change what has already happened in my own past. What I need to see is that it’s really more like trying to change my future - something that may be difficult, but which is certainly within my control. For example, I have a nasty temper that is likely to flare up at any time. I can’t erase the angry outbursts of the past. But I can control the ones waiting to erupt later on today. Is it easy? No. If it was, I wouldn’t have so many angry outbursts in my past.

I can change my characters’ lives just as I can change my own, with a lot of effort. And I know I need something more—I need to ask for help from God. If I ask for help, I get it. I just keep forgetting to ask. So here I am, not only asking God to guide my writing, but also asking him to help me to remember to ask him to guide my writing.

And everything else in my life.