The Importance of Down Time
Writers, like moms, don't get a day off. I can say that with authority, because I'm both. On Labor Day, while most of America is grilling burgers and enjoying a day away from the office, writers and moms often continue their regular routines. Moms are faced with the dilemma: Who's going to step in and change your toddler for you, or fix dinner? Who is going to buy groceries or do the laundry, if not you? For writers, the questions are much the same. Who is going to outline your latest book or article for you, if you don't? Who's going to sort through the various ideas you've generated for upcoming projects?
The big question we need to ask is: Do you deserve a day off? The answer, for both mothers and writers, is yes.
Whether or not you get that day off, though can be dependent on a host of other factors. You can't necessarily just declare, "I'm out of here" on a holiday, but you can plan ahead to make sure that you need to do as little as possible.
If, for example, you have yourself locked into a regular publishing schedule on your blog or other online forum, see if it's possible to schedule your post in advance. For example, I knew I wanted to attend a Labor Day party at a friend's place this past Sunday, which is normally the day that I work on the week's entries for Wild Violet . So I made sure I worked on that earlier, using WordPress's scheduling options to make sure it posted at the time that I wanted. That way I can go to the party and enjoy myself without any guilt.
Even if you're not using WordPress for your writer's blog, a lot of other platforms also allow scheduling posts in advance. Or, you could make sure you've written the post ahead of time so that the actual act of posting takes less time. It's even valid to post a quick paragraph, acknowledging the holiday, and declaring you're taking a day off, and perhaps pointing readers to a couple links of writing or other sites you feel are worth checking out.
The same goes for projects with deadlines. While anything for a corporation is unlikely to have a due date over a holiday, if the due date is soon after the holiday, it's natural to want to work through it. Remind yourself that you deserve a break like everybody else, and tried to figure out a way to get more of that work done before the holiday weekend.
The same can apply to mothers (or work-at-home fathers, as the case may be). If you don't want to have to cook and clean on the holiday, prepare a meal ahead of time that can just be heated up. Or shift your usual cleaning schedule so that you get the day off. Of course, nobody is going to tell your child that is your day off, and therefore, you're still going have plenty of parenting duties to perform. However, if you're lucky enough to have a helpful, responsible partner, who may happen to have the day off from work, you should ask him or her to pitch in and help spread out the day's tasks. Single parents can ask the same of a friend or relative, since holidays are meant to be spent together anyway.
Long ago when I began life as a self-employed person, I heard some great advice from other writers. One such piece of advice was that you need to make certain that you make time for things that you enjoy. When you're working at home, there's usually no set work hours. Therefore, it can be easy to focus on nothing but work day and night. Just remember that, along with all the other daily routine tasks, to make room for fun. It may be a short break, especially if you are in the midst of a huge project, but it is important for your mental and emotional well-being that you allow yourself to relax. Even 15 minutes of yoga or a brief walk will make a huge difference.
For me, the party Sunday was doubly welcome. Even though I couldn't escape my parenting duties, and spent much of the party playing in the front room with my 3-year-old and a couple of other children and their parents, simply being around other people, being able to talk to them and express ideas that went beyond the latest project or explaining basic vocabulary words, did me a world of good.
Still reluctant to take some time off? Consider this: Just because you're hiking with your family doesn't prevent you from mentally planning out your latest fiction project, or sketching poems in your mind. But if you take the day off, you'll get to enjoy the sights and smells of the outdoors while you do so.
The big question we need to ask is: Do you deserve a day off? The answer, for both mothers and writers, is yes.
Whether or not you get that day off, though can be dependent on a host of other factors. You can't necessarily just declare, "I'm out of here" on a holiday, but you can plan ahead to make sure that you need to do as little as possible.
If, for example, you have yourself locked into a regular publishing schedule on your blog or other online forum, see if it's possible to schedule your post in advance. For example, I knew I wanted to attend a Labor Day party at a friend's place this past Sunday, which is normally the day that I work on the week's entries for Wild Violet . So I made sure I worked on that earlier, using WordPress's scheduling options to make sure it posted at the time that I wanted. That way I can go to the party and enjoy myself without any guilt.
Even if you're not using WordPress for your writer's blog, a lot of other platforms also allow scheduling posts in advance. Or, you could make sure you've written the post ahead of time so that the actual act of posting takes less time. It's even valid to post a quick paragraph, acknowledging the holiday, and declaring you're taking a day off, and perhaps pointing readers to a couple links of writing or other sites you feel are worth checking out.
The same goes for projects with deadlines. While anything for a corporation is unlikely to have a due date over a holiday, if the due date is soon after the holiday, it's natural to want to work through it. Remind yourself that you deserve a break like everybody else, and tried to figure out a way to get more of that work done before the holiday weekend.
The same can apply to mothers (or work-at-home fathers, as the case may be). If you don't want to have to cook and clean on the holiday, prepare a meal ahead of time that can just be heated up. Or shift your usual cleaning schedule so that you get the day off. Of course, nobody is going to tell your child that is your day off, and therefore, you're still going have plenty of parenting duties to perform. However, if you're lucky enough to have a helpful, responsible partner, who may happen to have the day off from work, you should ask him or her to pitch in and help spread out the day's tasks. Single parents can ask the same of a friend or relative, since holidays are meant to be spent together anyway.
Long ago when I began life as a self-employed person, I heard some great advice from other writers. One such piece of advice was that you need to make certain that you make time for things that you enjoy. When you're working at home, there's usually no set work hours. Therefore, it can be easy to focus on nothing but work day and night. Just remember that, along with all the other daily routine tasks, to make room for fun. It may be a short break, especially if you are in the midst of a huge project, but it is important for your mental and emotional well-being that you allow yourself to relax. Even 15 minutes of yoga or a brief walk will make a huge difference.
For me, the party Sunday was doubly welcome. Even though I couldn't escape my parenting duties, and spent much of the party playing in the front room with my 3-year-old and a couple of other children and their parents, simply being around other people, being able to talk to them and express ideas that went beyond the latest project or explaining basic vocabulary words, did me a world of good.
Still reluctant to take some time off? Consider this: Just because you're hiking with your family doesn't prevent you from mentally planning out your latest fiction project, or sketching poems in your mind. But if you take the day off, you'll get to enjoy the sights and smells of the outdoors while you do so.
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Dispatches from Wonderland
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