{"id":26625,"date":"2014-08-21T06:30:12","date_gmt":"2014-08-20T18:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=26625"},"modified":"2014-08-20T11:41:08","modified_gmt":"2014-08-19T23:41:08","slug":"writing-process-when-life-intervenes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2014\/08\/21\/writing-process-when-life-intervenes\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Process: When Life Intervenes…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"It's<\/a>A month (or so) back, on July 7<\/a>, I promised to write a little more about writing process—and since then, nothing…<\/p>\n

Because life intervened, as it has a habit of doing, and it’s taken this long to come back to the idea.<\/p>\n

Previously, I’ve talked about the importance of solitude and uninterrupted time<\/a>—including from social media—for really getting my head into the writing space. I also think it creates the (head)space for creativity to actually blossom. So “when life intervenes”, dragging in other priorities which must be addressed, such as family, employment, and—most pertinently for me over recent years with the Christchurch earthquakes<\/a>—events such as natural disaster relief and recovery, the muse can take quite a hit.<\/p>\n

\"It's<\/a>Kate Forsyth<\/a> also alluded to this recently in her guest post on Random House Australia’s blog, where she discussed what she personally saw as the Top 5 challenges in being a writer<\/a>. Kate’s headings were: housework, answering emails, self-promotion, saving for old age, and keeping all the balls in the air.<\/p>\n

Several of the points she made resonated with me, most particularly the one about keeping all the balls in the air, which particularly applies when life intervenes beyond the everyday—which as we all know can be more than challenging enough!<\/p>\n

\"...and<\/a><\/p>\n

The other obvious point is that this scenario applies to all of us in our daily work and lives, or can do. The difference, I believe, having had a professional career as well as contributing voluntarily to several organisations, is that (for me at least; I make no claim to speak for other authors) writing does not lend itself to templates or standardization of work practice: with every storyline and character, I am making it new and reinventing the wheel—or trying, too.<\/p>\n

It’s actually the hardest work I’ve ever done, either intellectually or emotionally. So the need to be alone and uninterrupted with the stories and the characters really is critical—and when life intervenes can sometimes feel very much like, “Oh, no-oo-o-o…”<\/p>\n

Of course, the flipside of that “oh, no” is that storytelling and creating characters are all about<\/em> real life, albeit told through the “slant” of fiction, so authors also have<\/em> to be engaged in real life…<\/p>\n

So regardless of whether it’s more everyday demands or a “when life intervenes” situation, finding the right balance between solitude and engagement is a perpetual challenge for the writing process.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A month (or so) back, on July 7, I promised to write a little more about writing process—and since then, nothing… Because life intervened, as it has a habit of doing, and it’s taken this long to come back to the idea. Previously, I’ve talked about the importance of solitude and uninterrupted time—including from social […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26625"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26628,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26625\/revisions\/26628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}