It’s good to go outside.

The huge benefit of being thrown by a horse and not being able to exercise for over a week or lie down on the bed without screaming in pain or do anything in between carrying on as a mother except sit in a high-backed chair in front of my computer with a cup of coffee, a bowl of organic strawberries and painkillers at the ready, is that I’ve re-learned the lesson of how much writing is required of writing.

I try to balance my writing schedule with exercise (an hour a day). I’m not a spring chicken and I have a six year old, so it’s very important to me that I am strong for my son. I want him to remember an energetic mom who ran with him in parks (he never has to know how much I am, sometimes, yearning for a nap during those runs). I don’t want him to see me always in front of the computer working, or always hastily vacuuming because I’ve spent so much time exercising and writing that the house is falling to dusty pieces around us.

Balance, I tell myself.

Yet—cutting out the exercise and vacuuming and having daily four hour writing stints of late? Talk about getting up close and deeply personal with a novel. I understand, now, why writers go on solitary writing retreats. I don’t want to go on a solitary writing retreat, but I get it.

Now that I’ve been given the all clear to (slowly) start exercising again, I’m wondering if I can get to bed earlier and rise earlier in order to allow more time to write. Unlike my husband, who rises at 530am each day to go jogging, I’m not a 530am type. 630am, okay, but by then it’s time to make the boy’s breakfast. It’s going to be interesting.

Because the happy truth is: I love that I like writing or revising for 4+ hour blocks, instead of 2 hours here and 2 hours in the evening, or 3 hours here and dashing to the computer in between flipping pancakes or while the meatloaf bakes and the boy watches a show, or while the boy is in the bath with his toys, etc. (My pancakes get 2 mins each side, so if I’m flipping a dozen, the minutes add up, but still–it’s just not the same, is it?) I’d go 5 hours, even 6 if I could, but then chaos would take over the world as no one would get fed and I wouldn’t be showering, so that’s out.

“I find it easier to get up early in the morning, and I like to get through by one or two o’ clock. I don’t do very much in the afternoon. I like to get out doors then if I can.”
—John Dos Passos

Yes! (And maybe still run to the computer in between flipping pancakes…etc.)

Yours in evolving writing schedules,

PB.