It is very difficult to write while distracted, as anyone who’s been following the various writers associated with this blog knows. And yet, for most writers, if you aren’t writing it’s like a constant pressure building up inside your head, even if that’s an inchoate pressure that you can’t exactly sit down, tap into, and get the story out.

There are things in life you have no control over. Those things you must learn to write around. But how? you ask, and well you might. Sometimes you can’t, and you must take time off. I’ve written about banking the creative fires in the past, when I was dealing with the serious illness of a loved one and other life ticking-time-bombs at once. However, when all that disaster eases up, what you are left with is the rubble and chaos in heart and home. Time to metaphorically pick up a shovel, grab the wheelbarrow, and start moving it to clear a space of calm and work there.

Oddly enough, for me I find that the physical pulls the mental along with it. If my desk is a mess, I have trouble focusing. At a slightly larger remove, the office and whole house affect me (note that I am a mother and housewife by training, this will not apply to all of you). When I find myself unable to concentrate, I clean my desk. I set aside things that will make me think to deal with, to come back to later. The rest of it is generally putting items where they belong, which isn’t brain-intensive, and I have time to think about the story, mindfully and deliberately, which helps it begin to come into focus. For a broader chaos, like my past year, there are times that just the desk isn’t going to cut it. For me, the kitchen was the big hang-up, and I just finished (ok, I have shelves to put up and a range hood to install, still) the renovation project of that. Looking at it last night, having spent an entire day cleaning, reorganizing, and working on minor projects that have been irritants since we moved in 2 1/2 years ago, I had a deep feeling of calm and joy. Not that I have a pretty kitchen – although that doesn’t hurt! – but that one part of my home is an oasis where I don’t have to make do, make it work, and angle myself awkwardly and sometimes painfully around the bits that didn’t fit me.

My home has become my refuge. In setting it in order, I am setting my brain to be in a place where the creative work is possible, not pushed aside by the worries over things I can’t control. I have control here, and have made it a place where my husband and I can enjoy life. With that, comes the time to be creative. Finding ways to make my daily tasks more efficient frees up the time I need to think, to execute those thoughts into story (or art, but more on that in a moment), and to relax, which feeds the creative half of me as the kitchen exists to feed the physical half.

My studio is coming along, but I’ve already realized that while I keep saying “I can’t make art until it’s…” fill in the blank there, I have to find other ways to create, or allow my skills to atrophy. So I have begun drawing in Procreate again, as the iPad allows me to art with no muss and fuss. I have ideas involving a tiny watercolor set-up and scraps of paper that I plan to implement later today. I won’t have time until next month to spend a weekend working on the studio, and I don’t want to wait that long to get my fingers inky. I will control my brain’s insistence on ‘everything must be just so!’ and push back so I can begin to alleviate the pressure of the creative desires.

It’s a balance, of calm versus time. You might not have the time to take on everything you think needs to be done to set yourself up for success. Taking on a small project first (clear the desk, take the laptop to a different space, grab a notebook and a pen and run away from home… so many ways) might be all it takes. If not, well, I don’t recommend renovating the kitchen, but some times that’s what it takes!

You will learn, although I must say I am still learning, a decade-plus into this, the difference between cleaning to avoid writing, and cleaning to make the writing flow better. Once I am in flow-state writing, I don’t notice the mess. I miss the years past where I’d emerge from that happy fog to find I had a pile of dishes and laundry to deal with, but tens of thousands of words of progress. Worth it!

As for the things you can’t control, which stifle the writing, taking control of what you can – be it the desk, the housecleaning, or simply weeding a garden bed – will help. Our brains are easily distractible, although they may come back to the sore point over and over, and the calm of a small thing eases the anxiety over the big things we simply have to wait and see what happens.

Now, I’m going to clean up my desk and write for a while, until it’s time to run to the hardware store… again…