Space to Write

 

Virginia Woolf famously said that to write a woman needs ‘a room of one’s own’. She didn’t mean just physical space. ‘A room of one’s own’ is shorthand for freedom from both practical demands and financial concerns.

I’m not saying I need a housekeeper and a wealthy benefactor! But I know what Woolf means. To write I need space. Not physical space necessarily, although that is nice. But space in terms of time and mental energy.

I can edit when I have the odd spare hour, as long as those those spare hours come fairly close together. Otherwise I forget the focus of the current round of editing. But to write something new, or do a bigger re-write, I need time and mental space.

Is that just me?

Some people are skilled at shutting off their responsibilities, anxieties and burgeoning to-do list, and focussing on the task in hand. That’s not something I’ve ever been able to do, not really. And definitely not well enough to create something from my imagination. That takes a lot of head space. Genuine space, not space created by pushing other things under the rug and into overflowing cupboards.

To continue with the tidying analogy, when I feel overwhelmed by demands I prefer to take the time to declutter properly. To deal with as many of the distractions as possible. Then my mind and my desk are clearer and I can focus. But at the minute, however much I try to tick off, the to-do-list never seems to get any shorter.

I also know that I will cope better with the pressures and demands on my time and energy if I write. Properly write. Writing helps me mentally and makes me feel more like myself and so less likely to be overwhelmed with the urgent (but maybe less important) decisions and demands.

You know the trick of trying to fit a large pebble into a jar filled with sand or gravel? And what you have to do is take the gravel out, put the pebble in first, and then the gravel will fit back in around it. Prayer is like that in my life. Sometimes it can feel impossible to fit prayer in and that’s when I realise I’m failing to put it first; that I’m relying on fleeting arrow prayers and partial conversations. They don’t suffice, not for long.

Writing is similar for me. Not as important as prayer, but similar in that to feel whole I need to create the space to both properly pray and properly write.

Does this chime with anyone else? And if so, what do you do? As I write, I’m wondering whether I need to book a retreat, blank out days in my diary, or just turn off my emails. Or whether I simply have to ride out this time of busyness and hope it doesn’t last too long.