“Set a schedule,” they say.
“Writing is your priority,” they say.
“If writing is important, fit it in,” they say.
They.
The infernal they. The online advice gurus, the well-meaning “how-to” hacks. They all say that you set aside time to write and nothing, not hell nor high-water, is to interfere.
And… then there’s reality.
Here’s how my “disciplined” January shaped up:
- Week 1: husband sick.
Despite many a lecture to girls to take care of themselves while I write (read: watch as much damn TV as you want), they insisted on dinner, and other necessaries of life…
- Week 2: husband away.
Despite many a lecture to girls to take care of themselves while I write (read: watch as much damn TV as you want), they insisted on help with their homework. Man, the guilt…
- Week 3: husband away again.
Despite the now-ignored lecture to girls to leave me the hell alone (read: I don’t care what you do, just let me write!), they insist on spending time with me. (“Will you play a board game with us, Mama?”)
- Week 4: scratches on right cornea.
Who can possibly plan for scratches on one’s cornea, making vision blurry and impossible to read, let alone write? My writing time was instead spent at the doctor’s office…
- Week 4 that will affect Week 5: the @#%$ winter weather! No… more precisely, the #%*@ decision makers at the school bus transportation authority! Here’s the frustrating story:
- The forecast for last Tuesday called for snow and ice pellets.
- Tuesday was to be the first day of our students’ end-of-semester exams.
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- A precautionary announcement by our VP: if the school busses are cancelled (a “snow day”, of which only a small portion of students are, in fact, affected by said cancellation), all exams will be postponed. This could have been good for me. My students did not write on Tuesday. They were to write Wed., Thurs., Fri. I would have the weekend and Monday to mark exams, complete report cards and then I would be free and clear to start my long awaited leave the following Tuesday!
- the VP announcement ruined my life.
- The VP said that if Tuesday was a snow day, all exams would be postponed by one day. NOT Tuesday’s exam being written at a later date. Nooooo, let’s complicate things. Tuesday’s exams would be written Wednesday, Wednesday’s exams on Thurs., etc. Which means Friday’s exams (my last) won’t be written until NEXT TUESDAY (because God forbid we interfere with the PD day on Monday…), which means, my students’ last exam isn’t WRITTEN until the FIRST day of my leave!
- I e-mail HR. “We can’t ask you to come in if you don’t want to,” they say. “You can start your leave as scheduled.” And have someone else supervise and mark my students’ exams, as well as complete report cards? That’s not fair to my students.
- So, my VERY FIRST DAY of my FULL TIME WRITING CAREER will be spent supervising and marking exams.
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- My VERY SECOND DAY of my FULL TIME WRITING CAREER will be spent marking exams and preparing report cards.
- All because of one stupid snow day.
- Which, by the way, ended up with very little snow.
So, how, oh all-knowing “They“, do I prepare for that?
Discipline, schmisipline. I’ll write when I damn well have the time.