Defending My Time

This past weekend was the Creative Nonfiction Conference in Oxford. My company was part of the group putting it on, so I spent most of the weekend working (and fighting off a sudden allergy attack). As I watched all the attendees, panelists, and workshop leaders talking about their work, I was disappointed in myself. People were talking about waking up at 4:30 every morning to write, staying up late to write when their families have gone to bed, finding time between work and home to get that 45 minutes of writing all to themselves. What happened to my discipline about writing?

I've been amazed at how hard it's been to become disciplined about my writing, mainly because I'm disciplined in almost every other aspect of my life. I buy new groceries before the old ones have run out. My office is over-organized with folders for everything. I have no problem spending my Saturday mornings cleaning the house and doing laundry. But when it comes to finding time to write, giving myself the time to write, it's almost impossible.

This weekend, I was able to listen to one of the final panels; the topic was "Balancing Work, Life, and Writing". The writer River Jordan said something that really struck me. She said, "This may be totally sexist but I think women have a harder time carving out that time to write." She talked about offering to take care of her grandbaby on a day she knew she was supposed to be writing. Even her husband was reminding her that she was supposed to be writing, but she said, "I can do both." My first thought was, That's not sexist. That's just true.

And it is. It's true. It's a truth that stems from living in a sexist society. Women are made to feel that they can and should do everything. We are supposed to be the baby nurturers, the cleaners, the decorators, the cooks, the caretakers. We work outside the home and are still expected to manage the home. In a world where women are still largely expected to live their lives, first and foremost, for their children and families, a woman taking time for herself often feels selfish.

It's no wonder that women have a hard time giving themselves that alone time for writing. We feel guilty about it. How can I take the time to write when there is laundry to be done, dinner to be cooked, someone else's needs to be attended to? River thought, "I can do both." But she couldn't, and she knew it.

We can't do it all or have it all. No human can. We have to be protective (another word a writer on the panel used) of our writing time. We have to take it. We have to block it off in our schedules and defend our right to use it. Women writers like River and others from this weekend have found a way to do it, and I'm going to be better about doing it for myself. We owe it to ourselves. And to the world of writing. Because otherwise, all writing would be done only by men.

And wouldn't that be boring?