If Not Now, When?

Someone has said, “A writer is someone who writes.” Without clarification, this is a meaningless tautological statement, as meaningless as, “a singer is someone who sings,” or “a reader is someone who reads.” In order to qualify, how often must I write, sing, read? Most of us do these things regularly. In at least a minimalist sense, we are writers, if only check writers, singers, if only in the shower or car, and readers, if only billboards or the funny papers.

How frequently must we write, and how many words or pages must we produce before we have the right to call ourselves writers? Another of those meaningless/meaningful definitions disturbed my conscience recently: “A writer is someone who has written today.” And I know what they mean by “has written.”

I’ve been a “wannabe” writer for longer than I can remember, but have had my own reasons/excuses for writing only sporadically (once I committed myself in August to write 50,000 words by the end of the year, and did it). How long, for example, has it been since my last post to this blog? I’ve been retired for an entire year and have written little. I spotted, “a writer is someone who has written today,” then saw that old, but universally applicable slogan, “If not now, when,” and realized I had to change–that day.

Since retirement I’ve had dozens, literally, of tasks tugging at my conscience and desires. Which to do? Which to do right now? Without a plan, I’ve lived the past year catch-as-catch-can. That is, amorphously, chaotically, and thus, with a constant sense of frustration. That is, until I read the slogans mentioned in the previous paragraph. Suddenly I realized that “if not now,” meant, “never,” and within a few hours a “now” schedule struck my mind.

I had been a university professor for thirty-some years, tied to a schedule of twelve hours a week (for most of those years it was fifteen) in the classroom. It occurred to me that if I were to write on that same schedule, if I wrote twelve hours every week, I could make real progress. So, a couple of weeks ago I adopted the same schedule as our local university.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I will write from 9:00 a.m. until 11:00. Tuesday and Thursday, 8:00-11:00. All other time remains open for doing the things that married love does, and for taking care of the quotidian. If the opportunity arises (as it has this afternoon) I can write any other time, but anything besides the scheduled hours is optional. I sit me down in front of Word Perfect and allow myself nothing but either to write or sit before a blank screen. I don’t pull up the internet. I write or else am stuck with that blank screen until 11:00.

This schedule will apply during the dates of the fall and spring semester schedule. In the summer, I will do two four-week summer terms, with at least a week between Spring and Summer I, between summer terms, and between the end of the last summer term and the beginning of the fall semester. When Howard Payne University takes vacation or other days off, so will I. I’ve lived this schedule so long it is part of me. I can do this.

This scheduled writing time will be as inviolable as was scheduled class time. If I miss because of illness or other emergency reasons, or if for any reason am late, I cannot claim that time later in the day. When I was teaching and missed any part of class time, it was gone forever; it couldn’t be made up later in the day.


Now, my days are structured. And it works, for two weeks it has been working incredibly well: I am producing an average of more than a thousand words daily. They start as soon as I sit, and don’t stop until 11:00. I’ve built up such a reservoir across the years that it flows as easily and steadily as when the plug is pulled out of a full tub of water. I think it is going to take a long time to empty.

If I finish a piece earlier, I edit until 11:00. If I have no morning time for editing, I do that catch-as-catch-can later in the day.

On one hand, I’m writing this to celebrate my new world in print. On the other hand, I’m posting it to place these possibilities and options before you.

A writer is someone who has written today.
If not now, when?
If not now, it might wind up (or down) being never.
Goin’ to don’t pick no cotton.

Have you written today?