I’m at my dining room table, looking out the window at the tiny birds toddling across my front lawn, the swing hanging from its pine tree softly swinging in the breeze, and the sun-soaked flowers in the neighbour’s garden. This has been my writing view for the past month.
Every Friday, I write.
It’s so nice to have this weekly ritual, this precious time to sit down and do what I love. In fact, carving out this time is a necessity in our crazy busy household! Owen and Max’s current game is to take all the pillows off the couch, stack them up into a tower, and then hurtle themselves off it and onto the next couch. Max just turned 16 months.
But on Fridays, the house is quiet. Trenton drops the kids off at daycare on his way to work, and I gather up all my writing essentials—coffee, laptop, breakfast, COFFEE—and make my way into the dining room, where I might sit down and immediately feel inspired, or I might spend a half hour trying to find the right music playlist.
Some days, I easily write 2500 words. Some days the people walking past distract me and I let them distract me. I used to think I had to push myself to write a certain number of words a day (Stephen King aims for 1000), but now I recognize some days are more productive than others, and that’s okay.
When I first started writing, I used to force myself to sit and write when I wasn’t in the mood, and the result was I got very little done. Now I give myself permission to relax. I find that if I give myself that break, the words will come more easily the next day. And when they do, I put the kids down and madly type whatever idea was percolating while I was driving to a friend’s for a play date, or riding the train at the amusement park, or changing a poonami.
Fridays are for writing, but the writing process isn’t just about getting words down. It’s about letting creativity flow—giving your imagination the time and space to allow creativity to flow.
I’m so thankful that I have this time every week to dedicate to my writing and to myself, and I highly recommend all writers give themselves this gift. We all live hectic lives with jobs, family, and other commitments, which means we don’t find as much time as we’d like to write.
TGIF everyone! I hope you find time to do what you love this week.
Alexandra Latos 