Writing Blog

20220410 Limiting Through Writing

April 10, 2022, 8:00pm

With my personal life still playing havok on my time, my fiction has unfortunately fallen by the wayside as I just cannot get into a groove before the phone rings or some-one comes to the door. I just want to be left alone, really - I'll be fine.

Anyway, I still need to write for my own mental sanity (as opposed to physical sanity? what a stupid phrase I coined...) so how do I reconcile that with a disjointed life at the moment?

This is where something I learnt years ago comes into play.

Do not write one thing exclusively.

So, what I did was write columns for Weekend Notes. I am supposed to do a minimum of 10 a calendar month, and I already had one in the can for April, so what I have done to keep the writing thing going is churn out a quick-fire eight more. Now I only need to write one more column and I've got my minimum and can then add to it as much as I like.

So I think this is a reason why I never suffer from writer's block. Short story going badly? Try the novel. Novel suffering? Do some poetry. No poetical inspiration? Columns for Weekend Notes. Not ideas for columns? Go back to work on my two never-ending non-fiction works. That not working either? Find something that annoys me and write a letter to the editor. Or write a letter to an elderly relative who loves getting letters. Or to my kids who hate it because they feel obligated to respond. Even that's not working? Then it's time to grab the red pen and hit the editing suite.

So I guess that's the theme of this blog post - don't limit yourself at all and the writing will always be there.

Good luck, everyone!



Have I just made this seem a lot easier than most people find it? Sorry. But it has worked for me for more than 20 years. So I would say, without being facetitious, start now and eventually you may find yourself in a similar boat. At the very least, adding more strings to your bow or feathers to your cap can never be a bad thing.