Making Time to Write Monday: Pack a Bag

My husband calls me the “bag lady.” That’s because whenever we go anywhere, I ALWAYS take a bag. You never know when you might need something in it. Today we took a day trip to the closest IKEA store—three hours away. I packed a bag. But I don’t just do this for a road trip, I do this nearly every day. I don’t pack a bag to take to the day job because teaching fourth grade all day, there is no such things as “down time.” But if I’m running errands, going to appointments, taking my kids to various activities, I always pack a bag.

The one I’m currently using is a Thirty-One All-in-One Organizer. It’s big enough to hold my MacBook and files. It is not too big though.

What’s inside the bag? Well, I didn’t pack my computer or plan to do lots of writing because I knew I’d be helping the hubby with directions and refereeing the backseat. I packed things I could do in short spurts of time.

* MARKETING RESEARCH FOLDER—This is where I put all of my writing newsletters, articles I print out, or things I want to read related to writing and possible markets for my writing. (More on this another day)

* A BOOK TO READ—I was almost done with THE CREATIVE SPIRIT based on the PBS series. Anastasia Suen referred to it during the Naturally Creative Class I took, so I wanted to read in full.

* INDEX CARDS FROM SCRIVENER FOR CURRENT WIP—I’ve been working on the order of things for my current work-in-progress. I’ve been dragging the index cards around on Scrivener for a couple of weeks. I knew it was time to print them out and read through them all at once to see how things are working as a whole. (More on how I do this another day).

* POST-IT NOTES

* BAG OF PENS

* KINDLE

* NOTEPAD

Did I get to all of my stuff? Not all of it. But I read through everything in the marketing research folder, finished the book, read through and made notes on the index cards using the Post-It notes, and made a list of this week’s priorities on the notepad—all while navigating the roads and refereeing the back seat.

Why do I pack a bag? To make time to write, of course. If there is a spare moment, I can’t stand to sit and do nothing. While I can’t get loads of pages written during these types of moments, I can do some of the little things that take up time.

Later this week, I’ll be dropping off my daughter for an activity. I’ll take my bag and probably load it with my laptop because I’ll have time to actually sit and write for a longer period of time.

Want to make time to write? Pack a bag.