Is your system letting you down?
Is your system letting you down?
The irony wasn’t lost on me. I was writing a novel with a strong theme about women feeling rubbish and overwhelmed, and here I was feeling well, rubbish and overwhelmed.
It had all started so well. I’d re-written not one but two of my books and I’d started a podcast alongside it. I’d listened to many hours of interviews about full-time authors and how they were doing it. I’d followed a self-publishing course and was building a mailing list. I was, if I can be bold enough to say it – on a roll.
Only, what I’m not telling you here is most of this happened during lockdown - when as you know - most of life had stopped.
Yes, my husband and I still worked as journalists, and yes, we were home-schooling our boys. But, the rest of the diary - apart from a daily walk and navigating cries of ‘not this again’ had gone quiet.
Before you think this is one of those pieces designed to make you feel you are not doing enough, her bleating on about her books - I would just like to point out I’d been writing these books for 10 years by then. So please don’t think that as well as the mayhem that came into our worlds I was able to whip these books up on top of that.
They’d been works in progress for years. Years of rewriting, rejections and getting it wrong. But there is something I love about writing. Tapping on a keyboard, arranging thoughts and escaping to another world for a bit. Even if I wasn’t very good, I didn’t want to stop. And lockdown and an emptier diary gave me the space to work out what to do next.
So, when life began to pick up the pace we had vowed not to go back to again, I was determined. Ahem life, I told it, I am going to do what those full-time authors I’ve been listening to, do and I have my writing plan just like them. 10,000 words a week. 4 days a week to write. Sit down, focus, out they would come – because isn’t that what professionals do? And after all, I wanted to be a professional.
Only, this plan didn’t work at all.
2,500 words - I find - is a lot and while I could just about manage it some days, others the page stayed blank. Worse than this, I began That Scrolling. You know what I mean. The avoidance type. I don’t know what to write so I’ll check out Instagram. Twenty minutes later I’d feel more drained and rubbish than before. Not only was I not acting like a professional author, I’d just spent 20 minutes looking at them and how successful they are. I’m rubbish, no good, no wonder I’ve failed. The words in my head were loud, the words on the page zero. I felt a complete and utter… (I’ll leave you to fill in the blank.)
It took me eight months (just the eight) of battling, struggling, fighting diary entries, and feeling guilty about doing anything which wasn’t writing to realise.
This wasn’t working.
The system was not working.
My intentions were there. I had by this stage managed 40,000 words of my novel but over five months instead of the 4 weeks my plan had told me it would take. I also knew I was making life hard for myself. My biggest worry, which I kept pushing aside was this was not sustainable. The even darker one, which I dared not to think was for the first time in 12 years, I wasn’t enjoying writing like I did.
Then the Universe stepped in and I discovered the following. (Or rather I call it the Universe, my husband calls it life.) But this is what happened.
1. I listened to the audiobook Atomic Habits by James Clear. The book has sold millions of copies and I understood why. It’s so simple, it’s almost ridiculous.
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
(I first heard about his work on Brene Brown’s Unlocking Us podcast and highly recommend just to get you thinking.)
He talks all about changing your habits, in tiny ways which can lead to remarkable change. Build a system for getting 1 per cent better, he says and it made me think. Were my habits really helping me?
2. I listened to another podcast interviewing someone who I believe is just brilliant, Peter Crone. The Mind Architect. https://www.petercrone.com/ He doesn’t have his own podcast but I listen to him being interviewed on someone else’s when I know I need, politely, a push.
“Are you really using your time as well as you can - to be what you want to be? I mean really?”
No, I said out loud as I jogged around Bristol, because I did think at that moment, he was talking to me. ‘Are you being truthful?” He asked. ‘Truthful to you?’
I wasn’t.
3. I heard another interview by one of my favourite authors Jill Mansell on The Honest Authors podcast. I’ve read nearly all her books and I love them, and I love this podcast too. And then I heard, Jill Mansell writes 1,000 words a day.
Hang on I thought, what was I doing? The truth is, I’m not a full-time writer. I am a mum of two still-young boys, a journalist and then I write after that. And those authors I told you about who write 2,500 a day are full-time, prolific writer, publishing 3-sometimes-more books a year. The truth is this isn’t me, and the reality is it probably never will be either.
James Clear talks about the importance of being realistic and I wasn’t. He also talks about doing what suits you.
The reason why I listen to so many podcasts is I run every day. It was my dad who introduced me to this. Use it as your tool he told me, it gives you a rhythm in life. He ran pretty much every day and I do too. Not ultramarathons, never further, never faster - and normally, always first thing.
The fresh air, the routine, the clearing of mind and thoughts. The pounding on the ground, the shaping of thoughts, running through some, letting others go. Every day and on holiday too. A new route, but then the same each day. It’s my time out in the air and I love it. It’s my rhythm. It’s me.
What I was doing wasn’t me. I needed to write smaller amounts and often. Stephen King in his book On Writing (if you are thinking about writing a book, this is where to start), says write every day.
What a lot of those full-time writers did when they had jobs too was write early in the morning. My husband had suggested this before, but I’d resisted. I’d done six years of early shifts as a breakfast presenter. No. I wasn’t doing that. I can’t think. I’ll be exhausted, I’ll ruin my day. Besides, I’m a grump in the morning, who wants to read that?
But I was getting in my own way.
Was I really using my time in the best way I could to be what I wanted to be? Peter Crone’s words echoed. I was getting up at 6.30am and what was I doing? I was looking at Instagram. A good twenty minutes would go by – only stopping when my 12-year- old yelled ‘where’s my shirt?’ Never the best way to start a day.
I could ignore it no more.
I needed a new system – one which was more me.
Write every day, smaller chunks, lower the target. Let’s try 1,000 words a day. Get up twenty minutes earlier, turn the internet off, give myself forty-five minutes to write first thing, just get 500 down, I’d find time later in the day for the rest. Even on the days I go to ITV. Keep the story ticking, and the pressure off. I’d give it a go. What did I have to lose?
I’m not sure if it’s the peace in the morning or the silence of the thoughts, but those 500 words came easier than I could have believed. Not only that, I did more. I was now thinking about the story more, as I was writing every day and it flowed more easily. By 7.15 am when my son yelled for his shirt, I’d hit my 1,000 word count.
It frees up time in the day and the guilt has gone. I can meet friends for lunch without thinking I should be writing, I’ve not watched trashy telly in years, and now I can. And with the pressure off, the joy is back. I find I am writing more. Since doing this, I’ve written those 10,000.words a week, every week - just by planning to do less. Small and often, like running, is for me. Tapping like the pounding, clearing thoughts, or using them for my plots, all at the beginning of the day. Writing is now in part of the rhythm of my life and it’s working in a sustainable way.
I’m telling you this not to make you feel bad, or to make you think you should be doing more. Because this is the point, sometimes doing less is what we need.
But I also know if deep down there’s something else we want to be doing and ignoring it, can ruin our times too. The lunches with friends, the coffees, the trashy telly. I should be doing something else, the voice tells you and that’s not fun at all.
So, twenty minutes. We can all find that and in a way which suits you. The voice disappears and the first seeds are sown. Who knows where it will take you, but won’t it be exciting to see?
Best of all I’m loving writing more than before. Tapping, pounding, a part of my life. I’ve found the rhythm which works for me - and now I’m really hoping these words may help you if you are looking for yours.