Remember when I said I would write four days a week this year?
That has not happened since April, during the holy month of Ramadan specifically, when working hours changed for a month. Then we had a family trip then I focused on using the writing time I had to prepare for my first public habits workshop. Then summer happened.
In summer, I stayed up late to spend time with my family member visiting from abroad. I traveled. I went to parties and weddings. This summer was a lot similar to pre-covid times; only my kids got bigger and were not going to daycare/summer camp every morning. This time, they stayed with their grandparents to play with their cousins. So, I did not have to wake up until the last minute possible while I would still make it to work on time. That meant I arrived past my writing time. So I did not write in the summer.
What gave me so much comfort is that I learned that I can write in seasons and still be a writer. Cheryl Strayed shared this in her fantastic interview on Marie Forleo’s podcast. She mentioned she was a binge writer and shared a story of a Dear Sugar questioner, her famous advice column, who said she could only write once a month when she sends her kids to her mother’s house. Cheryl told her she was still a writer even if she wrote once a month. This answer relieved Marie Forleo, who, like me, admires Seth Godin and his advice that encourages writing daily. Seth and Rohan were, in fact, the main reasons I attempted to write daily last year.
Lucky me, it’s September again, and schools have been back for almost a week, so I am arriving early to the office. My writing context is back.
During summer, while the writing space remained the same, the writing time and, with it, the writing habit disappeared. This personal proof aligns with everything I read about habits; the importance of context for keeping them.
I am so glad I am back.
I recommend you check that interview.
Here is my favorite part:
“You know, there were many times for 3 months in a row I wrote every day. But there are also many times for 3 months in a row I didn’t write a word. And what I’ve found is when, like, I make an appointment with myself and I don’t look at each day. I look at the calendar ahead. And it’s been really helpful for me actually also to decide when not to write, because I can look sometimes at my calendar and say, “I’m gonna be really busy for the next month,” or, “I just gave birth to a child,” or, you know, I have to work really hard at this other project because that’s important to me too. And then I just put the writing aside and know that I’m not going to feel bad about it, I’m not gonna get into some sort of shame loop about I haven’t written. I tell myself you’re not going to write now and then you’re going to write then. And then what I do is I make good on that promise. That’s the other piece of it. This isn’t about being, you know, using lazy excuses. It’s not using this methodology in order to not write. It’s actually the opposite. It’s saying this is when I work best or when I can work best.
….One of the most moving comments I got after one of my talks is just during the Q&A afterwards. Somebody had asked me what my writing process was and I said about this binge writing: I don’t write every day and sometimes I write once a month. And this woman came up to me afterwards and she was crying, and she said, “Thank you so much.” She said, “I have always felt like I wasn’t a writer. I’m a single mom, I have 4 kids, and I can write once a month, the day my mom takes my kids. And I think you’re the first person who told me that I can still say that I’m a writer even though I only write once a month.” And I just grabbed her and I was like, “You are absolutely a writer. Because if you write once a month, guess what happens by the end of that year? You’ve written 12 days. And I know you can do a lot of beauty in 12 days. Because I’ve done it too.”
How to Become a Writer, According to Cheryl Strayed
Wow.