Recently,  a friend lent me a book on daily ritual. The book is filled with anecdotes on how Maya Angelou, William Faulkner and Haruki Murakami create their writing schedules. The idea is always niggling the back of my mind. Get a writing schedule built. Don’t deviate from your writing schedule. For cripe’s sake! Finish the book already!

I’ve used cleaning and organizing the office as a diversion to writing. I’m purging a few things every day in the name of creating space for creativity. I’ve been thinking about the characters non-stop and have a new list of topics to research. I haven’t made any great progress writing.

I pushed through a little writing with my partner a couple of weeks ago, but it felt inauthentic. The writing felt clumsy. I’m struggling with balancing my writing, my desire to write between the demands of family and household. Frankly, I feel like writing is losing out. It’s not going away, the noise in my head isn’t subsiding. If anything, the cacophony grows and swells in response to the time I spend dealing with teenage boys, laundry and the other myriad things that creep into my day.

I’m going to continue to purge, to organize and to clean because clutter drags me down. I will move into a space where I will build my ritual, devote my time and be the writer I am. I don’t know when exactly….hey, baby steps, but I don’t think it’ll involve a bleak hotel room, fishing or breakfast dates at 5 a.m.