The Writer's Bargain

Do It First

Hello friends,

Are you doing Jami Attenberg’s #1000wordsofsummer? I am! In theory! This is a two week writing sprint—or maybe more like a long jog—where you write 1000 words a day for two weeks. Any words, any project. Jami even has a book coming out about it next year, which you should absolutely preorder. We’re only on day 4 and you can totally catch up, or just jump right in. Come as you are. All that matters is you give it a shot.

Do you need to write everyday? There are vocal supporters and detractors on both sides here. For many, many of us, writing everyday is not logistically feasible except, maybe in short bursts like this. When writing is not our full time jobs, and let’s be real, that’s 99% of us, it’s sometimes near impossible to find even twenty minutes to sit down and focus on whatever we’re writing. I basically need twenty minutes to just shake off the day and remember where I was in the story before I even type a single new word. Ugh, life. It’s such a pain sometimes.

Saturday night though, I was determined to sit down and WRITE. My husband was out for some pre-Father’s Day fun, my kid was asleep, the dishes were done, the path was clear. I absolutely did not WANNA write but I wanted to HAVE WRITTEN, so I swallowed that feeling of anxiety and fear that always accompanies me for the first little bit of any writing session, and I did it anyway. I’m three quarters of the way through a Shitty First Draft of something, so the pressure is mostly off. I just have to get the words down. I’ll fix it all later.

And it worked! I wrote like 1600 words! It felt great! Then I went to bed! See how virtuous I am? See how accomplished? It smoothed my wrinkles and made my hair shiny, too. But I definitely went to bed thinking I absolutely can do this everyday.

And then Sunday was Father’s Day, which included brunch (and margaritas), a leisurely stroll through a street fair, a nap (cf margaritas) and the whole dinner/bedtime/etc routine with my kid. I thought I’ll just write 2000 words tomorrow and went back to scrolling my phone in a post-day-drinking fog.

That, my friend, is the Writer’s Bargain. And it is always a losing one.

Because of course I did not write 2000 words the next day. The next day was 7 hours of chores. I was wasted after that. I should have, could have done my writing first, but I thought, I’ll just get all this out of my way so I’m not worried about it while I’m writing. I did get it all out of my way. I did not write.

It’s ok, though. I mean, I wish I had done it. I ABSOLUTELY wrote “write 3000 words on my to do list for today” LOOOOOOOOOOL but I am only mildly beating myself up for missing some #10000wordsofsummer days here. I’m not on deadline for this project. I absolutely had to do three loads of laundry, clean the kitchen, grocery shop, switch over my kid’s seasonal clothes, some LONG overdue toy box weeding (while said kid was out of the house, natch) (thanks, Josh) and put away all the things that has accumulated all over the house over the last few weeks. I am so glad all those chores are done. I could not ignore them any longer. Life maintenance has to happen.

But.

The Writer’s Bargain is always a losing one. I am not going to do double the work later. I very rarely make up for lost time like this. It’s early in the morning now and I fully intend to write 3000 words today, but we’ll see if that actually happens after I do my day job (which has to come first today). If and when I do not write 3000 words today, I am going to replace the Writer’s Bargain with the Writer’s Creed: do it first, whenever possible.

If it’s something you want to get done; if it’s something you need to get done, you have to do it first, whenever possible. That makes it a priority. When writing is not our full time jobs, it’s impossible to make it the highest priority all the time, but when you can, force yourself to do it first. The laundry, three times out of four, can wait.

Don’t make a bargain with yourself that you can’t make good on. Do it first, whenever you can, and give yourself abundant grace when you cannot.

XOXOXOXOX,

Kate