How Challenged Are You?

I have just started getting myself back into a routine of writing, after a difficult few years that cut down my time. Many people will have noticed that my writing patterns have been sporadic and irregular.

I have times when my writing patterns are more regular than others.

I had the unexpected event of becoming a registered carer to my husband, who has disabilities over the recent years, and sadly, these disabilities have progressed, which means I have to balance my time more now than ever.

My husband is a childhood cancer survivor from the 1970s. Not only that, he was a victim of a car crash a few years back, then a few years later, Covid-19 struck, leaving him really unwell.

We knew there were minor problems left behind by the cancer treatment, which was undertaken when he was two years old, though we did not have access to much information from that time, and we were not expecting these disabilities to worsen in the way they did after Covid-19 struck him.

We also did not know how the disabilities left from the cancer treatment were going to affect him in later life until now; we had to make a subject access request to recover the information we needed to know, and this is still being looked at.

On top of this, there were other problems, such as supporting my daughter and her children, until they recently moved, on top of trying to look after myself and my husband.

It became difficult to look after my own physical and mental health, whilst finding the time to write, though I learned something from the process.

I was eager to try and get my writing back on track. Some of the older writers here will know that I used to be quite regular on the site, before all of this happened. I used to read, write and engage most of the time.

I still join in challenges, but I recently started a personal challenge of my own to find more to write about and make better use of my free time.

• I started by observing everything around me, whether it was a flower in the ground or a major event that was taking place in the street.
• I wrote myself a 'Creative to-do list.' I placed those topics calling me at the top of the list, and those that didn't at the bottom.
• I wrote down a list of everything I did during the day, and I managed to pick out times when I could have been a little more productive. This helped me to find more free time during the day and at night before bed.
• I created a timetable, slotting my writing time into the empty slots. I found that some days I had just five minutes, others, twenty minutes, and some days no time at all. However, the little time I did have was still useful for collating ideas, which meant I could use the longer times to draft and finalise my stories.

This may seem like a daunting task to some people, because it's almost like what we would have done at school or college.

However, it did help me to come up with some creative writing ideas, and it gave me two added bonuses that enrich my writing skills:

• I was able to challenge my time, which meant I could always find time to write or even read.
• I was able to come up with new topics that I would never have thought about writing about.

The main highlight of this task was that I learned that whilst most of us often take part in the online challenges, it was also important to set challenges and goals offline, not just those where we sit down and write, but those that challenge us when we feel less productive, uninspired, or when we feel that our time is severely reduced.

It's not about how often you write; it's about how you make the most of your free-time, even when that time is limited.