It’s in the Bag
I grew up on words. My mother taught me how to read by writing each new word down on an index card. Many nights, I would sprawl out on the floor with my box of words and string stories together, composed of a single rambling run-on sentence that would span half of the family room. I distinctly remember saying, on at least one occasion, that I could make a longer story if I just had one more “and.” To this day, I still have a penchant for run-on sentences. The writing bug really hit me in the fourth grade though, when we had an Academic Olympics and I won the gold medal for a story I wrote. As I grew up, I read and wrote voraciously. In high school, my father even threatened to tear up my writing notebooks because I was spending more time writing than doing my homework. Then “real life” crept up on me and I had to put my writing aside so that I could focus on earning enough money to be able to have things like roof over my head, gas in my car, and food on my table. I began to believe that I no longer had time to write.
Some days, between being a mom, managing a household, and getting my work done, I feel like I’m being rushed from one thing to the next and there’s just no way I can devote hours (or even a single hour) of time to writing. There are many days where I am on the run, at times literally, for over fourteen hours straight. At the end of my day, I get to spend an entire hour sometimes even two re-connecting and relaxing with my husband. This time is too precious to me and I refuse to give it up. I also refuse to wake up any earlier than I already do—four thirty in the morning—to write. Maybe that means I’m not dedicated enough or not crazy enough or something, but I draw the line at waking up before four thirty or giving up time with my husband.
Then I remembered a Connie Willis interview I’d read in Locus Magazine several years ago. One of the things that has always stuck with me from that interview is how she would find time to write in between all of the other responsibilities in her life. If she could write an entire book in the interstices of her day, why can’t I?
So I found an old bag I’d been given and converted it to my writing bag. I keep all of my writing tools in it as well as a few writing magazines. It goes with me everywhere I go: to my day job, to pick the kids up from school, to medical and dental appointments, to music lessons. There are some days I feel like a pack horse lugging this big bag around, but I no longer feel so put out when I have to wait a few extra minutes for my kids to get their acts together after school or if the doctor is running behind on his patients. These little delays now mean extra minutes that I can be writing. It’s also become a sort of dietary supplement for me: Instead of eating a big lunch at my day job, I hop in my car, drive to a nearby park, and write while I nibble on a meal replacement bar. (The meal bar is really a convenience. It’s next to impossible to write while spooning soup into your mouth or while eating a salad. I know; I’ve tried. Meal bars are very easy to eat with one hand while writing with the other.)
This is my bag—it was a gift from a co-worker, something she had received as a free gift with an office supply order. When I received it, I didn’t know what to do with it because of the size, but I knew I’d find a use for it eventually so I hung onto it. I’m glad that I did, because it’s become irreplaceable as my writing bag.
There are several pockets in my bag where I keep some of my writing tools. In the left hand pockets, I keep a memo pad for jotting down thoughts and extra cards for my compost bin—a special box where I save any ideas that come to me but aren’t related to what I’m working on right now, or aren’t ready to grow into anything bigger yet. On the left side there are spots to put my pens; I keep a red pen and pencil in my bag just in case I decide to bring my copyediting or proofreading work with me to an appointment. There is also a spot for holding my business cards, in case I meet someone I’d like to keep in touch with.
And finally, inside the bag, I keep my notebook and my writing magazines. I like having the writing magazines with me, because if I’m in a place where the environment is too noisy or busy for me to concentrate on writing, I can still nourish my writing mind.
Now, even though I often feel like I’m being rushed from one appointment or responsibility to another, having my writing bag with me at all times lets me take advantage of the little oases of time I have throughout the day to squeeze in some writing. If you’d asked me how my writing life was even just a year ago, I would have rolled my eyes and said I never had any time for it. Now, I’ll happily tell you it’s in the bag—my writing bag!
How do you fit writing time into your day? Do you schedule time? Are you able to carve out an entire hour or more to devote to writing? What works for you? Do you have something like your own writing bag? If you do, please share about it!
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Kimberly Gonzalez
reader, writer, freelance copyeditor & proofreader, foster & adoptive mom
I schedule my writing time — but then, writing is my full-time business and my clients pay me to write for them — definitely motivating!
I’ve gotten to the point where I can estimate how many minutes (or hours) it will take me to write & edit 300 words, 500 words, 800 words, 1,000 words, etc., which really helps for scheduling my day.
I’ve been test-driving http://teuxdeux.com, a free, Web-based “to-do” list. I keep it up on my browser all the time, and just cross tasks off as I complete them and add new ones as they come to mind. Really handy!
Thanks for the link; I’ll check it out! That makes sense to schedule your writing time when it’s your full-time business. For me, copyediting and proofreading is my business, so I do schedule time for that. I can’t just show up at my day job or my freelance work whenever I feel like it, or nobody would pay me!
Everybody’s got a different formula, adapted to their own way of living. There do appear to be certain constellations of related activity, but always in the background is the knowledge of the shoe which fits one pinches another.
So at times I schedule time by imagining gaps in the schedule of my existence, which might be conducive to writing. Yet I often am required to reconsider as unexpected random events fill in those slots. Pushed and pulled, I find my being unexpectedly in a perfect spot in which to write.
For me, alertness is required, and a willingness to push through currents of psychological requirements if need be (and available). I’ll carve out several hours only to find I waste an hour gathering ideas, juggling invisible fields of emptiness, or puttering with other artistic meditations in stages of development.
This sort of semi-self directed nonlinear exploration can drive one crazy and it can provide a thrill as I find a pure strain of going into the zone and emerging hours later. Cultivating trust, staying mindful, and testing boundaries of time and energy work for me. It’s a cooperative venture between myself and outside forces reflective of inside processes.
At times, I make time to write and I don’t care what gets in the way. I just know and then it happens.
I do have a writing bag, which I call The Accumulator. It’s a large duffel bag filled with papers, books, and other mediums of inspiration or importance which I gather to me. It’s useful for me to have a place I can put all my works in progress which is portable. I might need to move everything to a certain desk, stairway, or corner with which to regard my work.
In the short term, I carry a moleskinne into which I beam my thoughts, reflections and dreams into where possible. But often I’ll find myself needing to write on a post-it, back of a business card, or bill envelope. It gets thrown into The Accumulator for later study, or transcribed to the moleskinne if it’s suitably developed.
But anyway, it’s awful nice to be able to contemplate these matters. Thank you for sharing your equipment ideas Kim a roo. Very worth considering when one is developing their secret sauce formula.
Thanks for sharing your process and writing bag too!
Cool article, very inspiring. I personally use my Blackberry, because it’s also my phone, so I always have it with me, it fits in my pocket, and I can type on it’s tiny keyboard as fast as I can write with a pen, except the text is already digitized and can be transfered to my computer in seconds. There is another really cool article at writer Phil Rossi’s website, he calls it “Guerilla Writing” – finding snippets of time in the day to write, and this article shows all of the different tools he uses, small paper notebook, palm treo, iPhone, laptop, etc. Check it out, it’s a cool article: http://www.thephilrossiexperience.com/notjustadad/?p=75
Thanks for this article, I really enjoyed it.
Glad you enjoyed it! I like the idea of having something small and digital, like the Blackberry, to carry around. Having something that fits in your pocket is a lot easier than carrying around a spiral notebook. I’ve never been able to transition from writing first drafts longhand to writing them on the computer or anything like it though. It’s like in my mind, writing on any kind of word processor is reserved for school and work, and writing by longhand is reserved for creativity. That and it’s too easy to get caught up in a never-ending self-editing loop on a word processor. Thanks for the link to Phil Rossi’s site!