On mum guilt and writing rhythms

— Whenever we have circle time, he keeps saying, ‘I miss my mummy’.??

Thanks Jennifer, that’s a wonderful way to greet a mum when she comes to pick up her 4-year-old son from nursery.

This was yesterday, a little over an hour after I’d had the fleeting thought I do most Thursday afternoons. Should I pick up the little one from nursery and take him along to the park with the big kids, or should I try and fit in a writing session?

Yesterday I went with the writing, and spent a blissful hour with my notebook by the lake while the kids built a den in the bamboo ‘forest’ (I just had to restrain them from getting the chainsaw from the house at one point, but otherwise I was able to scribble undisturbed).

Aspiring writers have constant choices to make. There are events we will miss and other commitments or opportunities we will say no to. And there will always be guilt — whether the calls on our time are from family, friends or tasks ‘I should be doing’.

Something that helps to ease the guilt is to find writing habits that work for you. Allow these habits to become rhythms that are flexible to bend to the realities and messiness of real life.?

If you’re a long-time reader of my blog or email newsletter, you’ll know I’m a big fan of forming habits to minimise decisions (decisions are exhausting* and making too many will leave us with less energy to write).

I loved the way that my friend, blogger and general spreader of fun, Stephanie Brentin Rose reframed the discussion of habits in a recent conversation. Stephanie talked about finding? ‘processes and routines’ for her day so that? she can ‘flow through the day versus hitting a wall with every shift’.

Over time habits can become processes and routines and start to feel like effortless rhythms.

A couple of the rhythms I’m working on to build in writing time are:

Thursday: school pick up followed by writing time in the park (or at home if it's too soggy to be outside).

Saturday morning: park run (for me) followed? by writing time in a cafe while my son has his art class.

Here I've just mentioned the writing rhythms tied to kids’ activities (since I started this post thinking about mum guilt). But there are other writing habits in my week that have started to feel like rhythms over time.?

Previous (writing and non-writing) rhythms I have built into my life over time include: regular trips to the staff allotment when I was working at the university campus and a weekly stop for a pasty at the bakery after kids' swimming lessons (ok, maybe it’s a bribe rather than a rhythm, but you get the picture...).

And, by the way, my son informed me that he prefers me to pick him up later rather than at 3:30 as 4pm is snack time:-)?

?A new habit can be hard to start, but over time gives rhythm to the days and weeks. It starts to becomes effortless. And after a while, there’s no guilt, as that’s just ‘how things are’.

You try it:

Are there any pockets of time that you can find in the coming week for your writing? Take out your calendar now and find one or two time gaps tied to activities that regularly need to happen (like school pick up or waiting at art club).

How to make these writing sessions an enjoyable event to look forward to:

Vary where you write: if you usually write in your office, why not try writing in nature?

Make your writing the ‘treat’: if you need to run an errand/ wait for an appointment, can you tie it in with a writing session in a favourite cafe?

Use these sessions for writing that’s ‘just for you':? turn off the perfectionist and the editor. Just write what you want to in these sessions. It’s more about getting into the rhythm? of writing and (re)learning to love the process of writing than it is about penning your next bestseller or viral post.

Let me know below about your writing rhythms. If you already have rhythms in place, what are they?

#writingcommunity #mumguilt #habits

*James Clear discusses the idea of building and stacking habits to minimise decision making exhaustion in 'Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones'.