As someone who divides my time between writing and microfarm-management, boy do I understand the tension between indoor and outdoor work this time of year. With planting well underway at Stone’s Throw Microfarm right now, I am not in my office a whole lot this time of year. The reality is, there are a few weeks every year when I don’t do much writing at all. There genuinely isn’t time.
But soon, the garden beds will be planted out, the plants will start doing their own work of growing and producing food, and I can get back into my office.
There’s just one problem. It’s soooooo nice out!
Writing in the Season of Distractions
If you live in a region with four distinct seasons, summertime is not always an easy time to maintain a writing practice. Rainy seasons and frigid winter days are perfect for spending long hours indoors grinding away at word-count production. But when the sun is shining and the beach, forests, mountains, and open roads call to us? This tests one’s writerly resolve!
How do you keep writing during summer months?
Yes, the Season of Distractions is upon us in the Northern Hemisphere. Writing time feels suddenly limited. Here are 3 hot tips for maintaining your summertime writing practice.
1.
Be careful about irrational goals for “writing while traveling”. Guess what. Long plane trips are NOT writing retreats. There are maybe two people on that trans-Atlantic flight who are able to type gleefully on their laptops for six hours straight. The rest of us have bodies that do NOT like the pressure changes, bad air, constant droning noise, and crying babies. None of that is conducive to tapping into the Zone to work on literary writing.
Family vacations are NOT writing retreats either. Family vacations are rich with distractions, mishaps, and a total loss of routine. None of that is conducive to tapping into the Zone either.
Recognize these realities before making plans to “bring the book project with you.” Yes, bring the manuscript on your vacation. But recognize it will take intentional scheduling and respectful buy-in from all family members just to carve out half-an-hour each day to write. Even so, the writing quality may be compromised.
The goal for these short writing sessions during the vacation is neither quality nor quantity. Truth be told, most Authors don’t get much quality work done during a family vacation. Rather they simply keep the well open. So, once they get home, they can re-enter their real writing practice more easily.
2.
Plan a separate “solitary vacation” or series of mini stay-cations that are solely dedicated to the book project. Set aside a whole week or a few three-day weekends as writing retreats. If possible, book these as literal stays in a hotel or other vacation housing. Take yourself away from the distractions of home, family, and yard projects. This is writing time. Period.
If cash is tight, cloister yourself in a room or corner of the house that you don’t typically use. The key is the change of visual space that lets your whole body know that this is a special moment, set aside for this one task.
Pull the blinds so the gorgeous weather quits calling to you. You’re here to write.
Yes, the Season of Distractions can threaten to fully derail a daily writing practice in the summer months. But a mini three-day writing retreat works wonders to restore momentum and commitment.
3.
Switch up your daily writing time. As weather heats up, you may find new tension between “using the cool of the morning” to get things done outside (exercise, gardening, fishing…) and a writing practice that used to happen organically at 6am in the winter months.
If you’re normally a “morning writer”, you may need to adjust that habit just for the summer months. Try writing during early afternoon or early evening when it’s still obnoxiously hot out. Use traditional Siesta Hours to retreat to the cool of your office or a coffee shop to work on the book.
Much like a rainy day can inspire hours of writing time, those moments when it’s genuinely too hot to enjoy yourself outside can push you into the office as well. Spend “heat days” the same way you use the “rain days” in autumn.
Here’s to maintaining that writing practice in the midst of the Season of Distractions! Bon voyage—for any upcoming trips, and as you continue your journey through your book project.