Time: Putting Writing into Your Life

It’s summer. You’re longing for the beach or the mountains or a river rafting adventure or a hotel room with room service or museums or music outside under the stars… that’s what summer’s all about, varying your routine and letting you breathe.

Remember summer when you were a kid? What did it mean to you? Ice cream trucks—their bells ringing in the distance and you running to your parents to ask for money, hoping you could persuade them before the truck got to your block? I mean, the horror of running out to the street and finding your friends with popsicles and ice cream sandwiches and you standing there without. Or was summer the time you could stay out all day and not have to report in to the parental units as often? Did you have homework in summer? Certainly not. Summer was for fun, play, exploration and laziness.

Hmmm. Does that have to change because you’re not 8 anymore? What if it didn’t?

The thing is, as an adult you have more responsibilities, more things you MUST do. You’re the one the kids run to for that ice cream money now. But, as an adult, you have different kinds of fun, don’t you? Different ways to play, different things to explore and many more ways to be lazy than when you were a kid.

FUN

What is the most fun thing you do? Think about it. What makes you laugh the most, what is the one thing you want to do when you’re in the mood to just have fun? Figure it out, and carve some time out for it. This doesn’t have to be something you do with others, it can totally be something you do alone… or it can be with others. It just has to be fun.

PLAY

What is play to you these days? Video games? Basketball with your friends? Scrabble? Try to work at least a half hour of play into every day this summer.

EXPLORE

When you were a kid you could go down to the creek or over to the next block or out to the alley behind your house and find a plethora of things to explore. Bugs or plants or birds or hills to climb… you discovered all kinds of adventures to be had in your explorations. What kinds of explorations would take you out of your routine this summer? Think about it and make a list.

BEING LAZY

Where can you go and do nothing? Not watch TV [play], not read a book [fun], not take a walk [explore], none of those. I’m talking sitting someplace and kicking back. Is it on a beach chair, looking at the ocean or a lake? Is it on a hillside looking at a great view? Is it in the woods, watching birds tend a nest? Where can you go and just be lazy and think whatever thoughts come into your head, imagine whatever you feel like?

Now after you do all that, ask yourself how you can fit writing into that picture. Is it fun? Well, when it’s going well, I think so. Is it play? It can be, as you fiddle around with ideas and scenarios and characters. Is it exploration? Oh yeah, as you explore how to get your characters in and out of trouble/love, etc. And is it being lazy—yep. One day I was laying on the sofa, eyes staring at pretty much nothing, and my husband said, “You’re writing now, aren’t you?”

Imagine, you get to do this thing that combines ALL of the joys of your childhood! Of course, feel free to still run for that ice cream truck, even though it has nothing to do with writing!

Copyright © Diane Lake

23Jun19

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