Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how to be creative when you
Speaker 1: already spend your work hours doing something semi creative. Having
Speaker 1: a regular nine to five job where you write or
Speaker 1: design or do something with music could sound like a dream,
Speaker 1: but there's a reason some artists prefer straightforward day jobs.
Speaker 1: And that was the question from a listener who recently
Speaker 1: wrote in. She says that I work exactly full time,
Speaker 1: forty hours though fifty when you build in the commute,
Speaker 1: and I've been writing a novel for twenty eight years.
Speaker 1: I want to write every day. But since I work
Speaker 1: full time writing and then come home and feed and
Speaker 1: walk the dog, work out, and get some kind of
Speaker 1: dinner on the table, It's seven pm and I have
Speaker 1: three hours before I need to go to bed to
Speaker 1: get enough sleep, and I've got nothing left. I am
Speaker 1: so tired, she says. Is it possible to get personal
Speaker 1: writing into or am I being unrealistic. I've tried lunch breaks,
Speaker 1: but they're just not long enough. When it ends and
Speaker 1: I've just started rolling, I get upset. On the weekends.
Speaker 1: I routinely work on my novel from seven am until noon,
Speaker 1: or often all day, so it does get done, but
Speaker 1: I'd like to do it daily. Sometimes I just think
Speaker 1: about my novel as I fall asleep, kind of like brainstorming.
Speaker 1: But is that really the best I can do? I
Speaker 1: agreed that it's hard to write all day and then
Speaker 1: write more at night. Writing is my day job, too,
Speaker 1: and though I've written two novels, any rational analysis of
Speaker 1: my time finds that I could have produced a lot
Speaker 1: more creative output over the last decade or so than that.
Speaker 1: I often take long spells between working on purely creative
Speaker 1: stuff that I don't see an immediate economic opportunity for.
Speaker 1: It's human nature to treat stuff that pays the bills
Speaker 1: as important, and speculative stuff as well, stuff that can
Speaker 1: be dropped when we're tired the TV is calling. But
Speaker 1: I do think it's possible to do paid creative work
Speaker 1: and then speculative creative work too. The first step if
Speaker 1: our listener truly wants to work on her novel daily
Speaker 1: is to lower her expectations. I'm a little concerned that
Speaker 1: she dismisses writing on her lunch breaks because there's breaks
Speaker 1: just aren't long enough. If her idea of the right
Speaker 1: writing time is five hours, like the seven am two
Speaker 1: noon stretch she gets on weekends, that's gonna be hard
Speaker 1: to replicate daily. Instead, a good daily requirement might be
Speaker 1: to write just one hundred words or edit for just
Speaker 1: ten minutes. That's it. Those steps are so small that
Speaker 1: they should inspire no resistance. It's pretty hard to look
Speaker 1: at the three hours before bed from seven to ten
Speaker 1: pm and say there's no way I can make myself
Speaker 1: work on my novel for ten minutes. But that small
Speaker 1: requirement will have her interacting with her creative work daily.
Speaker 1: She will make some progress, and some progress is better
Speaker 1: than nothing. Some progress also has this benefit. She will
Speaker 1: change the story she tells herself. She is now the
Speaker 1: sort of person who does make time for creative writing.
Speaker 1: I think the small daily requirement will also ease up
Speaker 1: on some of the guilt. Our listener is beating herself
Speaker 1: up that she's not doing more creative writing. But it
Speaker 1: turns out is the rare person who becomes more creative
Speaker 1: in response to scolding. When she sets her expectations low
Speaker 1: and then meets them, she can celebrate. She can reward
Speaker 1: herself by doing whatever she wants guilt free. That could
Speaker 1: be watching TV or surfing the web all night if
Speaker 1: she wants. But my guess is that there will be
Speaker 1: a reasonable number of nights when she'll feel like doing
Speaker 1: an extra ten minutes, and then she'll make even more progress. Finally,
Speaker 1: many people benefit from accountability. For both my novels, I
Speaker 1: had some system in place for my book called The
Speaker 1: Courtland Boys. I checked in with an accountability partner every
Speaker 1: Friday for Juliette School of Possibilities. Well, the publisher who
Speaker 1: had published all my nonfiction books had expressed a strong
Speaker 1: interest in the outline, meaning a book contract was potentially
Speaker 1: in sight. I saw a compelling reason to finish. If
Speaker 1: our listener has been trying to write this novel for
Speaker 1: twenty eight years, she might likewise benefit from some external accountability.
Speaker 1: The most straightforward way to get a deadline and accountability
Speaker 1: would be to sign up for a fiction writing class
Speaker 1: at a local university. Ideally, this would be an evening class,
Speaker 1: perhaps once a week, where she'd have to turn in
Speaker 1: chapters and get them critiqued by her instructor and fellow students.
Speaker 1: This would give her something constructive to do during one
Speaker 1: of those evenings when low energy tempts her to the TV.
Speaker 1: It would also provide quite a nudge to keep the
Speaker 1: project moving forward. In our listeners case, I really think
Speaker 1: it needs to be an in person class. I've taken
Speaker 1: online writing classes in the past and they're great. I
Speaker 1: found them very helpful, but I've also noticed that a
Speaker 1: ton of people drop out. Often more than half the
Speaker 1: class stops before the end. If our listener has been
Speaker 1: struggling with getting this project going, I wouldn't want this
Speaker 1: to happen to her. If you've made progress on a
Speaker 1: big creative project while doing something similar for your day job,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear about it. How did you make
Speaker 1: it happen? What are your tips for our listener? As always,
Speaker 1: you can email me at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeart
Speaker 1: media dot com. You can also email me questions about
Speaker 1: your schedule or your time management dilemmas. Just let me
Speaker 1: know if it would be okay to use the question
Speaker 1: and a future show in the meantime. This is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions or anything else.
Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, fay Book, and Instagram
Speaker 1: at Before Breakfast pod. That's B the number four, then
Speaker 1: Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me an
Speaker 1: email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot
Speaker 1: com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
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