How I make time to write
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I’m on the train from London to Bruton in Somerset, it’s a Saturday morning as I type this. For the next couple of days I’ll be staying in a small hotel in the loft room with nice wallpaper while I work on a new book proposal and eat things from the mini fridge. The train isn’t too busy for a Saturday and a 2 hour 7 minute train is the perfect amount of writing time. I know the concept of a weekend is to not work, and yet here I am working — because in order to write, I need other people to not be pestering me (and week days are full of nuisances).
Quick note on Bruton: I’ve only stayed in the area once before years ago — described by The Modern House as “an unlikely epicentre for art, creativity and food” — when the team at The Newt invited me to review one of their new rooms, it was an amazing experience to write about but I probably won’t be back there any time soon unless I win the lottery. Bruton itself is sweet and quiet. There’s the Stripy Duck Bookshop where you’ll find a nice selection of books and locals having a cup of coffee; The Chapel which is a beautiful light-filled building that serves sourdough pizzas, The Old Pharmacy for fresh pasta, and boutique shops like Rose & Lyons (what is it about a little holiday that makes you want to make a rogue jewellery purchase?)
Weekends give me breathing space to write more freely. Writing often doesn’t feel the same as working, even though it is. Writing is something I have to do. Even though writing is how I pay my bills and I’ve been doing it for over a decade: the fact is that the weeks get full of other stuff. Sometimes I’m able to be disciplined and not check my emails til 1pm and have a really productive morning getting out my words. But most of the time, weekdays are full of life, distractions and other people. It’s not that I don’t have boundaries — I really do — but even sensing that someone is trying to get hold of me (the missed call, the accidental ding of my phone, the “URGENT” email subject line when it’s really not urgent at all) can ruin a deep-work writing day. I need space, especially to write fiction — and well, the weekends have always given me space.
For people with children, this is probably slightly more complicated. But even if I’m stealing 30 minutes, with a timer, morning or night — I’ve always written more easily when I feel the rest of the world is asleep or busy doing something else. (My one rule: at least one weekend day has to be spent not writing, and filling up my cup in other ways: be it hosting a barbecue at my home, going for a massive walk, baking, gardening, whatever. Rest and nourishment is of the utmost importance.)
This also means finding “weekend energy” within the week instead, so it’s all a bit back to front and higgledy-piggledy. If you’ve read my book The Multi-Hyphen Method you’ll understand my preference for designing a life from scratch. Of moving chess pieces around a blank canvas and finding opportunities that gently rebel against the traditionally socially constructed days of the week. Yesterday (Friday for me) I spent the day at Kew Gardens looking at Bonsai trees.
When I was 25, I wrote my first book, and I wrote it on Sundays. I had a 9-5 in an office during the week. Back then, I was still drinking and I would go out on Friday nights, spend the next day nursing a hangover with friends on Saturday, then write all day on Sundays. (I wrote last year about how giving up alcohol in my 30s has supercharged my creativity). I was able to romanticise my book-writing day quite easily. I’d pick out a nice outfit and pack up my little bag and say bye to my housemate and go to a quiet local café with a view out onto the bustling street, with my iced latté, laptop and freshly painted nails, with the background music playing Fleetwood Mac. It felt like the perfect weekend activity, typing away quietly. And crucially: no emails. No boss. No one asking anything from me. No new notifications on Gmail. No distraction. This is still what I need now, in order to write. So I still write on the weekends. So much has changed and also, so little.
There was a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert I saw years ago that said: “What are you willing to give up, in order to have what you really want?”
Some people spend two hours at the gym over a weekend. For me I still spend some time, most weekends, tending to my writing.
Tending: to care for or look after; give one's attention to.
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