At the beginning of May, I started doing what I've been doing since the beginning of the year, searching my brain for ideas for an article for the upcoming month's issue. With my mind void of ideas, I decided to go check up on my writing goals for the month. I was hit with disappointment when I realized I was nowhere near to finishing the goals I had planned. Then I asked myself, "Why is keeping up with this so hard?" Then the idea hit me. I should write an article about it.

We always read about tips on how to manage our writing, how to get through our writer's block and how to stop procrastinating, but I never read anything about why we have these struggles. So, that's what I'm going to talk about in this article. And of course, I'll add some tips in there, some of which I follow and some I plan to. I wanted to write this because I think it is very important that we know why we are struggling and having problems with managing our writing projects. If we know why we will know exactly what we can do to deal with it more appropriately. We're quick to blame it all on writer's block and procrastination, but we don't always know what's causing it to begin with.

In this article, I'm going to focus on four things that cause us to have problems when it comes to our writing.

CAUSE 1: BUSY BODY 

This could be one of the most common reasons for our management problems. As much as we writers love what we do, we all have lives, lives that can get in our way. Some of us have a family to take care of, a job to go to, school to go to or friends to socialize with. Some of us deal with all of these at once. All of these leaves us with little time to write. Sometimes, we're so caught up in them that we don't even write a word in a day (a few days in my case). We tell ourselves we're going to write today and then we're lying in bed going "Crap, I didn't write today!".

You know how a mother gets "Mommy Guilt" when she spends more time working than with her kids? Well, just the same we writers get "Writer's Guilt". There's this weird guilt that settles in when we have neglected an unfinished story for too long.

Now you may be wondering how to get past this, how to not be busy. Well, it's not easy, but I have some tips for you.

1) Prioritize

One of the most important things, I believe, is to prioritize. We writers have to decide which aspects of our lives are more important to US! We tend to find ourselves doing things that are not important, and that needs to stop. I watched a video where a teacher filled a jar with golf balls, then asked his students if it was full. When they said yes, he brought out some pebbles and put it into the jar as well, filling out the spaces in between. When he asked again if it was full and they said yes, he brought out some sand and again put some sand in it until it was at the top. He asked for the last time if it was full, and when they said yes, he pulled out a bottle of beer, opened it and poured it into the jar. Not a drop spilled over. The lesson? Prioritize. The golf balls are the most important things in life, like family. The pebbles are the things that are less important. The sand are the things that are not important. When we focus on our important aspects, there is always room for other aspects, like there was room for the pebbles and sand after the golf balls. But if the jar was filled with pebbles first or sand, there wouldn't be any room for golf balls would there? In the same way, if we focus on the not so important things, there won't be room for the important things.

The important thing I'm trying to bring across is to prioritize, for you. Sometimes writing may be a pebble and not a golf ball at a specific point in your life, and that's ok.

This leads me to my other tip.

2) Scheduling

Now that you know where writing falls on your priority list, it would be easier for you to set aside a time of the day that you are most available to do it and how much time you'll spend doing it. Scheduling may not work for everyone, but for some, like me, knowing they have to write at a specific time motivates them.

If you do choose to do it, it's best to start off with a small amount of time. If it's working out for you, then you can start increasing the time. This is actually something that I have to learn to do. I always tell myself that I'll write, but then I get caught up doing something else that is in no way important. I'll have to start practicing some self-control too.

3) One at a Time

With all the golf balls and pebbles in your jar and so little time to deal with it all, a good tip is to focus on one writing project at a time. We may not like putting some of our work on the back burner, but for progress sake, we'll have to. One project just adds one thing to the list of things to worry about. This is another tip that I have to learn to follow. I usually get bored working on just one story and then start working on multiple at a time. But then it all gets too overwhelming and I get nothing done. I've tried cutting down on the amount I do, and it actually works. This time though, I should just focus on one.

4) Don't Get Stuck

Yes, it's important to focus on one thing at a time, but it's also important to not stay stuck on the same thing. If you're having problems with one story, put it on the back burner and move to another one. The more time you sit there trying to figure it out, the more time is wasting.

5) Goals

My first Wattmag article was about setting goals for the new year, and the topic of goals is coming up in this article again. So by now, you should know that's it's something important to me and I take it seriously. Knowing what you're going to do, and giving yourself a deadline, really does push you to work harder to accomplish the goal. Not only do I have a yearly goal, but I have monthly and weekly goals too. Accomplishing them, that's another story.

CAUSE 2: NON BUSY BODY & GETTING BORED

I have no family to take care of (I'm not an orphan or anything, I just don't have to financially or physically take care of my family). I'm not in school and currently unemployed. So, when it comes to time, I have a lot of it available for me to write. But do I? No. Then what's my problem?

That's a question that I've been asking myself for a long time. I'm usually never busy, so why do I find it hard to sit and work on my writing? I had to think back to the days when I first started writing and did it a lot. I started doing it in secondary school and for the next few years, I would write a lot. But about a year after graduating community college, I started to see my zeal for writing dwindle. Why did that happen? One of the two reasons I figured out was that I wasn't busy enough. When I was in school, I had assignments to do, exams to study for, lab reports to write, and writing stories was my escape. It was something I could do to distract myself from all the things I had to do. But now, there is no school, and the "escape" I got from it all the time wasn't there as much. I had gotten a temporary job last year, and I hoped that being busy again would urge me to write more. But my job wasn't mentally demanding like school was, and writing felt like the job while the actual job felt like relaxing time.

The more I looked into it, the more I realized that this all leads to getting bored with writing. When all you do is write, you get tired of it and want to do something else.

This may sound weird, but not being busy enough can also be a bad thing and you as a writer can get bored with writing sometimes. Some of you are thinking about all that I said and going "She might actually have a point". Some of you may be going through the same thing and not even realize it.

So, what are some tips to deal with this?

1) Get Busy!

Find something to do that is in no way related to writing, it's that simple. Take up a new hobby, learn a new skill, do anything you can to give your mind a break from it all. I'm currently working on doing something big and if it all works out for me, I'll be VERY busy. I think that would be the thing that lights the fire under me...or make me too busy.

CAUSE 3: HEALTH

This one is one of those causes that are there, but we sometimes don't see, either in ourselves or each other.

When you're sick or in pain, it's a lot of the time physically impossible to move right, let alone write. Bad physical health can affect you to the point where you don't even have the energy to write or do anything.

Then there's the mental aspect of it, which can also be brought on by the physical side of it. When you're going through some mental health issues, it affects your writing in ways you didn't even realize. There are times our depression and anxiety take over and we don't feel like writing, and we just say "I don't feel like it", not realizing what's really causing it. A lot of writers go through things that affect their mental health and that in turn could lead to a lack of inspiration and writer's block. It can, in a weird way, affect your physical health and make you feel sick.

In the previous section, I mentioned that not being busy was one of my problems. Well, mental health is the other one. After graduating I wanted to go to university but didn't have the money to. So, that meant getting a job. That too was very hard to find, and I went a LONG time without one. All of that, along with my grandmother dying and other things, sent me into this mixture of depression and anxiety. My writing was affected tremendously by it. At the moment it's not that bad, but it's still there.

So, what can we do to help our health?

1) Physical

When it comes to our physical health, we have to do the basic things to take care of our bodies. Like eating healthy, exercising and drinking water (none of which I do). If it's something more serious, you'll have to go to your doctor.

2) Mental

Depression, anxiety and other mental issues are tricky, and sometimes different from person to person. If it's something like depression and anxiety, you can find what's causing it (family, work, relationships etc) and come up with ways to solve the problem. I'm saying this like it's easy, but I know it's not, trust me. If this is something you can't deal with on your own, there's no shame in going to a professional.

CAUSE 4: INSPIRATION GOES BYE BYE

This is a problem we often deal with and often blame our writing struggles on. All the causes that I mentioned before could lead to this, which is why we are quick to blame our problems on this. Sometimes the inspiration, the muse, the zeal, the ideas, just aren't there and we have no idea what to do.

We all know what to do to deal with our writer's block and lack of inspiration.

1) Get Inspired!

As writers, we all have our special things we do to get inspired. Some take walks, exercise, relax. There might be some binge watching and reading involved too. You sometimes find some random idea as you watch and read. If you're like me, sleeping works well too. So, find the thing that relaxes you, and do that.

If you want some more help on how to deal with your writer's block, check out believeincats article in May's issue. She has some good tips there. 

Writing is something that is very important to us. That's why when we meet up hurdles, we get frustrated and want to get over them as soon as we can. Now that we know what causes these struggles, we will be able to search ourselves, identify them and deal with them in the appropriate way. This isn't something that I've mastered, but I plan on working on it. One day, I'll be sure to give you an update on my progress...or lack thereof.

So, what are the things that cause your writing management problems? And what do you do to deal with it?