Anne Tyler Lord

The Writer’s Life: Flying With Focus

I dream of being a strong majestic eagle, flying through a beautiful mountain canyon, knowing exactly what I am looking for and going after it with determination and focus.

But, lately I have felt like a crazy bird, unsure where to build my nest and running into windows I didn’t see.

I decided to do something about it!

I began by asking myself a few easy questions (with not so easy answers)

How often do you think about the amount of time you spend on…

  • Twitter & other social media, blogging, reading & commenting?
  • time you spend with family & friends?
  • working on your highest priority projects?

We see posts about these topics almost on a daily basis. Time is of the essence, especially in the writer’s life. My kids are home for the summer and we have a busy schedule. And, I am getting ready to go back to work part-time (but it will probably become full-time very quickly). I can feel the walls of available time to write closing in on me. So, I have spent the last couple weeks examining how to squeeze in more productive writing time.

I have a long list of projects from non-fiction, memoir, short fiction, novel, poetry, blogs, educational/self-help and some that defy description. I wish I could write from my passion each day, but my passion is often a flame that comes up with many new ideas before finishing important ones. This can sometimes leaves me feeling scattered, jumping from project to project.

I started with my writing priorities and asked myself…

If I knew I only had a year to live (or write), and wanted to leave my mark in the world through my writing, what writing projects would I work on first?

Amazingly, my priorities did change based on my question. I categorized my writing projects into these groups (well, close enough – I can’t find my notes – that is an issue for another post). Those that:

  • I hold close to my heart and leave a legacy to my children.
  • may help others on their path in life.
  • help me break out of my habits and allow me to go wild with experimentation.
  • call for fascinating research – online, books and talking to people – also intellectually challenging to pull together and creatively challenging to merge it all into new worlds.

Ideally, every project I choose will meet all these criteria, and I hope that will be the case for long-term projects. But this exercise did help me put a few things into perspective.

Time with my family does come first, but I realized that writing projects with and for them were not prioritized high enough. That is going to change.

Long-term research projects for a novel were overwhelming to me, but I realized this book was a high priority. That will change, too.

I will never stop writing to help others on their path and experimenting with ways to break out of old habits and self-imposed restrictions. But, I will try to put more of these passions into all of my writing.

My biggest change will be only participating in FridayFlash on the occasion when I have something ready (I do have some Flash to complete) or posting an excerpt from a larger work. I love the FridayFlash community and will continue reading the Flash of my friends as much as possible.  In my perfect world, I would be able to work on all my projects simultaneously and still do FridayFlash every week.

My evil nemesis, Google Reader is another one of my greatest challenges. I desperately want to read more blogs and am determined to organize my Reader so I can make this process easier and more productive.

As for Twitter, I will always be there. I am very grateful for all the good friends I have met, I like the links & news and it is just plain fun.  The time management will need to tighten up as new demands in my life increase.

My blogging will be increasing, but in a way that I hope will provide something to help others with their lives and connect me to everyone more efficiently when my Twitter time is decreasing.

Now, with all my priorities in order, I can dance & groove like Snowball, the amazing dancing cockatoo. Now that is more my speed!

BTW – I heard on CBS Sunday Morning today that this bird is the only known creature of any kind that can respond spontaneously to music other than humans – WOW!

Others Blogging About Related Topics

How to Create More by Doing Less at Lateral Action. This is the post that stimulated ideas about my hierarchy of needs in my writing life (the categories above).

After I wrote this post, I found a others blogging about related topics this week:

Elizabeth Craig at Mystery Writing is Murder wrote Comments, about the time we spend on comments.

Betsy Canas Garmon at Wild Thyme Creative wrote, Confessions of a Right Brained Calendar Junkie.

52 Qualities of the Prosperous Writer: Number Twenty, Clarity, was written by Joe and Lydia Sharp at The Sharp Angle.

One More Thing for Fun

Speaking of birds, in our yard, we have been watching a mother robin on her nest and her baby birds for the last few weeks. Her name is Zelda, and the babies are Fred, Wilma, Barnie and Betty.

Look closely and you will see – Fred, Wilma, Barnie and Betty
Zelda madly chirping at me to get away from her nest

Let’s Talk About It

What are your writing priorities and how do you decide what deserves more time?

What are the best tips you can offer for time management, preserving your writing time, productive writing time and getting it all done!

Have you been shifting priorities lately to allow for more time with family and friends? Less time on Twitter? More time on Twitter? More writing time?

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25 responses to “The Writer’s Life: Flying With Focus”

  1. Coffee Klatch: Challenge | Don't Fence Me In

    […] Writer’s Life Weekly Feature. My post for the week is The Writer’s Life: Flying With Focus. I have been thinking about priorities in my writing life and living with the theme of birds […]

  2. Olivia Tejeda

    Hi Anne, Another great post and an important conversation. I don’t have kids and writing is my full time job and I /still/ have trouble finding enough time to write everything I want to write.

    About a year ago, I quit TV (except for CBS Sunday morning! – Love that bird!) and recently I decided that I could not spend as much time reading and commenting on #FridayFlash as I used to. I won’t stop writing it because I think it helps sharpen my skills, but I haven’t been posting every week and can’t comment as much as I used to. That’s difficult because the comments breed the camaraderie that makes it such a wonderful community.

    As you say, it’s important to do the things that mean the most and in the midst of that remember to enjoy the moments.

    Thanks for your wise words. ~ Olivia

    1. Anne Tyler Lord

      Olivia,

      Thanks. So you quit TV? I did that for a few years in the 80s (mostly). But I have a few favs I won’t give up. And, now we have NetFlix which has old favs – addictive. We love CBS Sunday morning too, been watching it for years. But quitting would free up a lot of time.

  3. Betsy Cañas Garmon

    Anne,

    Thank you so much for linking to my blog post about calendars and art journals. Working out priorities has been a theme since the beginning of the year. {the two big words for mediation have been SHIFT & CLARITY} In part, because of my season in life and in part, because I’m more myself these days {yay! 40’s}, I am more aware of what I want to accomplish vs. reacting to life. To connect this to the topic at hand – accomplishing means I must “manage” my online life, my family life & my private world. My big question of late is: When do I push and when do I rest. {Both are necessary, but I must discern…}

    And boy did this question get my attention:

    “If I knew I only had a year to live (or write), and wanted to leave my mark in the world through my writing, what writing projects would I work on first?”

    Wow. what a great filtering question. {more of that discernment.} I must confess that I haven’t thought so large as “leaving my mark on the world”. But I do think about capturing the messages of my life for my children. {Whether that’s in a poem, piece of art or my journals.}

    As far as method goes, much of my writing starts in journals – something about the paper and pen makes my brain connect & create. And I am most productive in the early morning. Guess I’ll always pick up a pen and write as my preference and I’m pretty hooked on my morning pages. But figuring out how to incorporate “my way” with the modern world and the people in my sphere is something I’m still in process over. Hence the sketches, the journals and willingness to change methods every so often over the past 25 years.

    Thanks again for the link and the great format to hear from other writers and creative minds.

    1. Anne Tyler Lord

      Hi Betsy,

      Thanks for the thoughtful replies. The strongest of my priorities is what you described, “capturing the messages of my life for my children.” I really want to make those projects happen first or coincide with the other projects.

      Your journals looked amazing and very inspiring. Those will be an amazing legacy to your kids!

  4. annie q. syed

    Hi Anne

    I read this while on hold with Con Edison Electricity company. Made the hold so delightful.

    What a great post. I think your posts here are so very helpful. Yes you are right, that others also cover similar topics but I believe they don’t go “deep” like you. Deep doesn’t mean verbose. People, for the fear of being verbose given everyone’s online reading attention spans are less than a trained dog’s playing catch, skip out on the depth in the content of the articles. All this is to say, I love the information here, albeit, sometimes I feel overwhelmed because there is so much, so unless directed to a SINGLE post, I get lost when exploring on my own. The woods of your cybersphere are ever so lovely to explore! 🙂

    My journey is as follows. My WIP for MS my only MS is called Her Sizwe. I just want to finish that and I will die happy. Not only that, I have myself convinced that I was born to write that damn story and when it is out of me, I could live a normal, non-writer’s life. Writing can both be a gift and a burden, for me personally.

    On April 11th, I uttered the words aloud to another, “I write.” Although writing since I was eight, that is when things had to come together like an outpour or I would lose it. Well, words have a power we don’t even know how to own. When spoken out loud the winds change the course of life. Only recently via Isca Media I came out of the writer’s closet. What that has meant is another journey and a new one. How do I dress? How do I walk? How do I talk? Why do I still dislike the word “writer” and hence my post “Identity vs Authorship” which got lots of LONG comments. Most ever on my website.

    Twitter too is new for me. 2 month anniversary of having a public account. And as you know I never did do Facebook.

    So, having said all that, in my process I intuitively created my series called Fluck Tuesdays based on Oliver Fluck’s photography–my snap shot fiction series. I was very drawn to his photographs and well it has taken a life of its own. Moreover, it has really helped me clear out the clutter of characters, themes, images, in my head that I constantly tried to incorporate in Her Sizwe, my WIP. Everything can’t be in one novel.

    I have put aside working on two collection of stories: Nectar of Ordinary (non-fiction real life accounts) and Augury (collection of fiction). I still joint down ideas and images and words, but don’t get bothered down with fragments like I once did. Contributing to Isca Media and Fluck Tuesdays is a handful.

    And then recently, I just started Still Sundays, a quick post, gathering thoughts from the early morning on Sundays that are so quiet, even in NYC.

    All this is to say, in my very madhatter ways, I am neither a crazy bird nor a steady eagle, but a crazy eagle. LOL

    I don’t make money from writing (yet and can’t rely on that) and don’t have a situation where I don’t have to worry about bills. So, my management of being on twitter is under control. I don’t have a choice but to manage!

    Anyway, those are my thoughts for now on this wonderful post. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and writing this.

    Annie

    1. Anne Tyler Lord

      Wow! Thanks for your thoughtful comments and interesting description of your writing projects.

      That is great how you recently announced you were a writer, and now you have a big writing world online with Isca and your website – even on Twitter. I think there are so many writers still in the closet. I know the FridayFlash community has several new writers, as of last year, including myself.

      Thanks for sharing the links. You have so many interesting things going on – I encourage others stopping by to check out Annie’s stuff – very cool!

  5. marc nash

    Hi Anne, I just think you have to decide how important writing is to one and in my case I view myself as ‘on’ or a writer 24-7 in that I can be struck by an idea at any time and need to at least note it down for later use.

    I write my novels when everyone else in the house is asleep, so I am not cheating them of my time.

    The shorter stuff I do when and where, often sat commuting to and from work. I’ve been waiting in a supermarket queue and memorised the elements for a flash that I came home and transcribed immediately in about 20 minutes.

    The strategy I came up with was not to work on any new novels for 6 months while I promoted my self-published one. While I have kept to that, I have never written so much in so short a space of time in my life – blogs pieces, essays, flash and short fiction, shooting scripts for video readings, podcasts, even redrafting a screenplay – I’ve never been so productive! I have found myself carried along on this wave of creativity, brought about by the need to market and push something, albeit tangentially with other works given out for free. Oh and I’ve postponed further novel writing for at least 3 months more since I haven’t even started marketing on the backs of my video readings/trailers.

    I’m not claiming that I’ve necessarily been that efficient or successfully prioritised, but I have been hard at work on it and had the best 6-9 months of my writing life in terms of enjoyment and communication with others.

    One day I will get back to redrafting 3 other completed novels and the WIP. But not just yet!

    1. Anne Tyler Lord

      Wow! You are on fire! That is great to be on that wonderful wave of creativity – I wish you many more months of surfing!

      Your comment reminds me of a chapter in Eric Maisel’s book that I read recently called “Creating in the Middle of Things.”

      I like that idea of grabbing moments when we are just waiting. I’ve had very productive days while away from home by keeping paper close and jotting down ideas.

      I think keeping paper available helps prompt your mind to keep going with the ideas rather than closing down until you are home and ready to concentrate on writing.

      1. marc nash

        I asked my son if I could have his old vocabulary notebook from last academic year, because it fits perfectly into my jacket pocket. I have to say it was barely used by him!

        1. Anne Tyler Lord

          Knowing your vocab – that is amazing to me! Maybe he will take up your interest later – hehe!

          1. marc nash

            Kids have to take their rebellion where they can find it!

            He is a prodigious reader actually. It’s his twin who won’t read anything at all and his spelling isa horrendous, even though he has a fabulous vovabulary, because he hasn’t been exposed to how words look on the printed page, so tries to spell them as they’re spoken – He couldn’t spell ‘literature’ or ‘government’ or ‘parallel’ and loads of others in a voluntary spelling bee at school – so I made him learn all the words back home. He would have been better off just reading a book than me torturing him – “When will I ever need to know how to write the word ‘literary’?” came out of his mouth during the struggle…

          2. Anne Tyler Lord

            LOL! I can just imagine the look on your face when your son made that comment about ‘literary’ – priceless!

  6. Deanna Schrayer

    Love this post Anne. That is one of the most important questions we must all ask of ourselves from time to time – “If I only had a year to live…”.

    Well, you know how I’ve been fitting my writing time in the past few days – go through a week long flare where I can’t get up off the couch and force myself, (yea, force), to research Italian Gods, which naturally makes for High Creativity. 😉 And, wake up in the middle of the night giggling and go ahead and get up and let the fingers flow.

    And now I’m paying for it.

    You want to know something ironic? When I first started working for the company I’m still working for now, (in my 9th year), I taught classes on time management for the first four years or so. Even though I had a full-time job with toddlers to raise, I seemed to just have a knack for managing my time. BUT, I didn’t write then, or at least not seriously – the most I did was journaling, and I did do a lot of painting and scrapbooking too. But now, I’m finding it more challenging than ever to get my priorities straight. I have been spending less time on Twitter, which I hate to do because it is so much fun and I’ve made so many friends and learned so much through Twitter, but it was my biggest time-eater, so something had to be done. It’s working at least. I have been working on my novel more in the past few weeks, and have somehow still worked in family time, which of course is the most important. I imagine I speak for all of us in that respect. The boys will be here with me this summer too, but since I stili have to work full time it’s hard finding time to do things withe them. They’ll be gone to a Bible camp for one week, and then we’ll be on vacation at the end of next month, although part of the vacation for me will be research for my novel.

    I need to hush now….;)

    Grief! There I go again, posting a comment longer than the blog post. It’s your fault though for making such an interesting topic for us. 😉

    1. Anne Tyler Lord

      Hi Deanna,

      I love your long comments!

      But I will be careful what I write back this time so I don’t say something that will get you up in the middle of the night laughing (pant & slobber from the last post – for everyone getting caught up)

      My impression of you is the Energizer Bunny. You seem to have so much energy to keep going and doing a lot each day. I have days like that, and used to have more. Hopefully I can kick it up a notch this summer.

      Take care and let us all in on the Italian God – looking forward to the story on Friday!

  7. K.M. Weiland

    Brilliant, heartfelt post. Seems like time is short for everyone these days. I’m always being asked by writers, “How do I make time for my writing?” There are the usual tricks of getting up earlier, going to bed later, weeding out non-essentials, hiring a maid (I wish!), but, at the end of the day, it really all comes down to priorities. If writing is a priority, it will happen. If it’s not, it won’t. Simple as that. And no one but ourselves can decide to make it a priority.

    1. Anne Tyler Lord

      Thanks K.M. – I agree with the priority notion, what else could give us the time to write? And, I still hold out hope for the maid!

      I love your video posts – very well done!!

  8. Anne Tyler Lord

    Hi Ronda,

    Wow, you aren’t on Twitter? I am in awe that you found my blog out in the blogosphere – there are so many, and Twitter (and recently FB) are the only places I let others know about my posts.

    Yes, I agree with the reading other blogs time but still getting a lot out of it!

    Good luck to you – and congrats getting off Farmville.

  9. Ronda Laveen

    Yes, I have definitely been work on this lately. Limiting my time on Facebook. Two weeks ago, went cold turkey with playing the game Farmville. Haven’t tried Twitter yet…not sure I need another time sucker. I’ve continued to blog. Writing the posts goes fairly quickly. It’s reading others’ blogs that take so much time. But I do enjoy them. I am whittling down to my priorities though.

  10. Josie

    ooh, good question: “If I knew I only had a year to live (or write), and wanted to leave my mark in the world through my writing, what writing projects would I work on first?”

    Loving the synchronicity – considering time management, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, projects – this is a *very* timely question for me. I’ll give it some mulling. Thanks.

    The passion / scatteredness is something I’m familiar with too.

    1. Anne Tyler Lord

      Hi Josie,

      Glad you could stop by – yes, it is a big question. I took a few days with it.

  11. Marisa Birns

    Interesting that I have been thinking about making changes for myself. I realized that I spend too much time on Twitter and putting aside writing until “later”.

    I, too, think that after a year of joining and writing FridayFlash, that I need to step away and work on the things/writing I’ve neglected. Like you, I will post if I have something easily ready and available.

    Don’t have a plan in place yet, but feel that it’s time to go to the next level, time to think of writing as my “business”, and to proceed accordingly.

    I love your fiction, Anne, but I also see that the non-fiction writing you do here is just so magnificent and helpful!

    Twitter is great fun, isn’t it? Too much fun. I think I must use it as a reward after my work is done. No more procrastination.

    And it’s not as if I won’t “see” all of you anymore! 😀

    1. Anne Tyler Lord

      Hi Marisa,

      I see you have been thinking about being another Twitter limit-setter. It is so hard for us because that is where we all met and where we love to play.

      But hopefully we can all still meet up here and there!

      Yay! Take that writing to the next level. Isn’t it exciting just to say that?!

  12. Laura Eno

    This is exactly what I’ve been wrestling with lately. I’ve decided to pull back a bit from all of the social media. I don’t want to disappear completely because I’ve made too many valuable friends, such as you :), but something has to give or I’ll never write another novel…I also don’t want to stay a crazy bird, which I will if I don’t write these ideas down!

    1. Anne Tyler Lord

      I hear ya, Laura. Don’t you just feel that headache of hitting the same window over and over? Yikes. It takes so much concentrated effort to work on a novel. I haven’t touched mine from NaNoWriMo and there is another one I want to work on NOW. Some of my research involves talking to people who are getting close to 90 years old. I just can’t procrastinate that project – every month counts.

      Good luck to you. We will all still connect on Twitter or on blog posts – stop by my place for a chat!

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