I’m
not a big fan of exercise but sometimes I force myself to do it out of sheer
necessity. Mostly I try to find excuses
or rather find other things to do as a means to avoid it. To my shame, I feel as though I have been
doing the same thing with my writing recently.
Is it sheer madness that the very thing I say I love to do, I find 101
excuses not to?
I’ve
just been away for a week in the sun and lovely it was too. As a family, we don’t tend to do highbrow or
exotic holidays. My husband is busiest
at work during the summer so whilst everyone else is jetting off to luxurious
destinations, I’m usually pet sitting and wondering how to juggle work with
entertaining the boys during the long summer break.
So
by October half term we are more than ready to get away. Destinations are fairly limited; we don’t want
to travel too far as we only have a week but we do want it to be hot. We usually
plump for one of the Canary Islands as the weather there is pretty much guaranteed.
My
husband loves the sun. He rarely sits
down at home but give him sunshine and he does a pretty good impression of
being comatose. The boys of course need
to be occupied so instead of going exclusive we go cattle market (sorry, slip
of the tongue there, I meant to say all-inclusive).
Now,
all-inclusive I think, is a bit of a mixed blessing, especially at
half-term. It’s crowded, noisy and there’s
usually a fight for the sunbeds each morning – more of that another time. But the facilities are great for the boys.
They have plenty to do, make lots of new friends in a relatively safe environment,
eat what they want when they want, and only sulk when we insist on taking them
for a walk.
So
that’s the other half and the kids taken care of which leaves me plenty of time
to read and write. It’s the closest I
get to a writing retreat without abandoning everyone (oh what bliss that would
be!)
And
yet at the beginning of the holiday I struggled to think of anything to
write. Life has been so hectic that I
haven’t had the time or the headspace recently.
But before I came away I emailed some of my ideas files and half written
stories to my kindle and I forced myself to write. Just a little, but I set myself a goal of 500
words a day. Not a great deal, I know,
but it was achievable and as soon as I got into the habit, the writing and
ideas started to flow. As well as
finishing some stories which had been languishing in a folder on my computer
for too long, I made a list of projects to complete post-holiday, read some writing
reference books and even toyed with an idea for a new novel.
Now
I have something to aim for and I just need to keep up the momentum now that I’m
back (even if I am drowning under washing and ironing).
So
I’ve learnt that writing is like exercise, the more you do it the easier it
gets. I wonder if I’ll be fit by
Christmas?