Keeping the Writing Well Primed

When I was growing up, my parents would sometimes take us “up north” to camp. “Up north” is a Michigan term for any of the areas north of the cities in Southern Michigan (Grand Rapids, Flint, Lansing, Ann Arbor, Detroit) and covers the upper half of the lower peninsula and all of the upper peninsula.

When we camped, one of our tasks that seemed more like play than work involved pumping water from a closed well on the campground. If we arrived on a Friday afternoon, we would often find that the water pump had not been used much, and at first, we would pump the handle up and down and get nothing but air. This would sound like gasping, belching, and even the beginning of vomiting before something would catch, and then the handle would be harder to push, and then brown water would spit out at first. After repeated pumps, the water would run clear and would flow well. We’d bring this water to our parents, and they would make coffee and dinner.

My writing over the last month has reminded me of this pump priming. June has been a struggle for me to keep up a regular writing routine because of scheduled conferences and seminars I agreed to attend. I wrote a great deal in May. But then, during the first five days of June, I lost my May momentum when I had to put the writing aside to attend a seminar for the first week of June. When that was done, I found that returning to my writing was like trying to work that water pump at the camp ground in Northern Michigan. The first day back, I wrote almost nothing and felt frustrated. The second day wasn’t much better. It actually took three days back before the writing began to come out–stilted and brown at first– and really began to flow. And then I had to set it aside again the week after that for a conference I was attending. 

This is one reason why I think it’s good practice for people who have to work full time to set aside a regular time for writing every day–if they need to write. It’s good practice to have even half an hour right in the middle of a busy schedule for writing small things like blog posts, letters, or even journal entries that capture something of what they are thinking about for a larger project.

This June, my schedule got the better of me, and I failed to do this.

Now, after a writing retreat at the lovely Serra Franciscan Retreat Center in Malibu, I’ve gotten the writing flowing again. I’m hoping to keep it going. But when I get back into a heavy work schedule again in six weeks, I am making plans now to have even 30 minutes of writing every day. I will keep you posted on this.

How have you managed to keep your writing flowing in the midst of a chaotic, busy schedule? I’d like to hear from you.

(Below, scenes from the Serra Retreat Center.)