Getting Real for a Minute Here

When you get a kick-in-the-pants email sent from a writing mentor at 4:30 a.m., it makes you think about your life. In my case, the email wake-up was something along the lines of, "Why have you been fiddling with one manuscript for the last six years? You should have at least two or three complete manuscripts at this point. If you want a career as a writer, you need to step it up."

Well. I was discouraged. On the one hand, it's hard to find time to write in the first place! Trying to keep up a full-time job, relationships with friends, family, boyfriend, exercise, church involvement, housework, travel, reading, meal prep, and the other things I do to have a balanced, functional, and productive life—while I usually manage to get a good amount of writing in, sometimes I feel really good about myself if I write for 15 minutes a day. And that's not even accounting for future things I imagine could eat into my writing time, like kids, and yard work, and walking the dog.

So on the one hand, there's all that.

But on the other hand, and I've heard this at every writing conference/class/workshop I've ever been to—you have to make time for writing or it won't happen. Most writers can't afford to do it full-time; most also have a day job. Or a parenting gig. Or both. Plus a million other things. So in no way is my busy life unique; if anything, I have more control over my time at the moment, as a young single professional, than I may ever have again. And I like to think I'm highly motivated, not prone to procrastination, and generally able to stick with tasks and get them done. So why don't I have several manuscripts finished and ready to query to all the agents I've been painstakingly researching?

I guess the answer is ignorance. Writing books is one of those careers where there are no strict guidelines, no guaranteed paths. I'd heard it was good to work on multiple books, and I had a few I played with, but my focus was definitely on one. So, I asked myself after reading the "you should have multiple books done right now" email, had I failed at my writing career before I even got started? Was it even worth continuing to write books, or should I be content to just read them? After all, there are a LOT of books I want to read. And a lot of things I want to do with my life. Should I keep trying to write even though I have multiple priorities in life, and writing can't always be at the top? Should I keep going, knowing I might never get published? Or keep trying, knowing that I could get published and then have my book flop? Was any of it worth it?

I'm sure different people would have different answers. But after reading that 4:30 a.m. email one more time, this is what I decided to take away from it:

1. My mentor wouldn't have given me feedback if she didn't think I had potential to go somewhere with writing.

2. I learned a lot from working on one manuscript for a long time, things about character motivation, showing not telling, and plot, that I think will help me write future books (relatively) faster and better.

3. I don't have three manuscripts done. But my life over the last several years has been happy and fulfilling, and that's got to count for something, if not in the career world, then in the way I judge myself.

4. Now that I know what I need to do, Imma start doing it. Today.

And I did. I wrote my mentor back and told her I'd work on a new book that day, and in the midst of a hard, stressful, busy day, I carved out 15 minutes to do just that. And whether or not 15 minutes was good enough in the arbitrary scheme of things, well—it got me excited and it got me moving. And I'll just go from there.