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GKP Writing News

Finding Writing Time

So many happenings occur in spring, I’m having trouble finding writing time. I know, excuses, excuses. Except it’s true.

My does are having spring kids. This year I have four bottle babies. The barn needs cleaning out again and it rains every two or three days.

That makes gardening difficult as the dirt is now mud. The only good thing is the lack of frost. I was tired of putting blankets over the tomato and pepper plants.

The wildflowers are blooming. I do have that ongoing botany project needing pictures. It is tiresome to get out on the hills and have rain start. Digital cameras hate to get wet.

So do I.

rain makes finding writing time easier
Well, the novel I’m supposed to be working on is about a flood and its aftermath. The weather seems to be reminding me. Our neck of the Ozarks has been getting rain every two or three days for over a month. The south pasture has standing water several inches deep along the hill above it which is different. Even the garden with its gravelly soil is getting muddy.

What excuses do you have?

Your excuses are likely as true as mine. At least we tell ourselves they are.

And it is so easy to keep putting off our writing. Until writing becomes little more than a vague dream.

Enough already!

It is Writing Time!

Repeat after me: Finding Writing Time is possible. I will make the time. I will use the time for writing.

What will I write? I have two projects competing for my attention.

My botany project is running hot right now because I am bringing in so many new pictures. This year I am participating in a citizen science project putting up plant pictures.

Virginia bluebells are one of the many Ozark wildflowers blooming
The many Ozark wildflowers like these Virginia bluebells make finding writing time harder. So many of these plants are spring ephemerals, blooming for a short time in the spring, setting seed and vanishing. The botany project makes heading out with the camera valid, but no writing gets done.

The downside is how much time it takes. The upside is the incentive to get out to take the pictures and a chance to have some help identifying some I don’t know.

The allure of the botany project is how easy it is to do the pages. Each plant page has pictures and a single sentence.

My novel is complicated. I’m about half through the draft and it’s getting sticky. It digs up emotions.

Finding writing time is only part of the problem. Tackling the tough parts of writing is part of it too.

Several Ozark wildflowers are essay subjects in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.

By Karen GoatKeeper

Karen GoatKeeper loves to write. Her books include picture books, novels and nonfiction for science activity books and nature books. A recent inclusion are science teaching units.
The coming year has goals for two new novels, a picture book and some books of personal essays. This is ambitious and ignores time constraints.
She lives in the Missouri Ozarks with her small herd of Nubian dairy goats. The Ozarks provides the inspiration and setting for most of her books.