2024 is coming in freezing! We’re digging out from a big snow/ice/windstorm here in Oregon. Giant, old trees crashed down all over the greater Portland area, knocking out power and crushing cars and houses. The ice storm and temperatures in the low teens froze pipes and then broke them, in thousands of houses.
I had two pipes break and damn, that was a mess, but still, I consider myself lucky. Good neighbors helped me get the main water pipe turned off. But before that, water flooded straight down a wall from an attic space, through a downstairs bathroom and into the basement below. I have never been so happy that the basement is unfinished, has a drain in the floor, and no carpeting. Let’s hear it for the old funky basements! We were without water for only a day, until an emergency plumber could get to the house. Our home is livable, nobody drowned, and the dog isn’t too traumatized. It could have been so much worse, but it sure slowed me down to get any other work done!
Part of the work I do with writers is project management. We map out how much and how often they need to write every day/week/month to achieve their specific goal or deadline. We create a reasonable writing schedule that works realistically within the confines of their life. I am big on getting real here. It’s hard to drop a creative project into the middle of an already full life. Newer writers are very eager to set goals like, “I’m going to write 4 hours a day, 7 days a week, and I’ll finish my book in a month!” to which I say, “Nah…not with your full-time job and house full of toddlers. Let’s figure out something achievable.”
We also talk about the discipline they’ll need to be a productive writer. The word “discipline” has many definitions, like Merriam-Webster’s, “to punish or penalize for the sake of enforcing obedience and perfecting moral character.” I hate punishment and penalties and I discourage writers from looking at discipline as something punitive. The word comes from the Latin root “to learn” or “to be a disciple of.” I like the idea of discipline, and specifically self-discipline, as a practice where you learn from yourself. Self-discipline determines how you show up in your writing life and create. It goes hand-in-hand with self-respect, which is defined as, ”a proper respect for oneself as a human being.”
If you want to write anything worthwhile, you need self-discipline to stick to a schedule and write (and not just scroll). But you also need to respect the fact that you are human, and shit happens! Your writing schedule is guaranteed to get screwed up when your pipes break, or a tree pulls down your power lines. That’s life!
So many writers, artists and creatives are just one storm away from giving up on their goals. Once they’re off track, for whatever reason (the flu, a bad workweek, a holiday…whatever) they decide that keeping up is too difficult, so why bother. Writers who achieve their goals, however, cut themselves a lot of slack. They get it! Life happens! They plan rest days, emergency days, sick-kid days and even vacations into their creative schedule. Then, when their pipes burst, they take time off to mop up the mess. They might even take a few extra days to get over the shock of having a waterfall in their house. But then, once they’ve got their wits about them, they get back to work. That’s self-discipline. That’s self-respect. That’s how writers show up for themselves and get the job done.
