Balance
By JL COPELAND
Alright? How to achieve balance as a writer?
Was there ever a trickier question?
It’s Autumn here in Korea, Fall for my American amigos. The Korean Tourist Board will tell you that ‘Korea has four distinct seasons.’
This is total bullshit.
It has two: hot and cold. For around three weeks, tops, the temperature balances in the pleasant zone like an acorn on the end of a chopstick. We then endure the progression to fiery furnace or ball-shrinkingly Baltic.
Anyway, back to the post.
What makes a good writer?
Many things, but among them, balance is key.
Before we get to balance, let’s have some music. I’ve been needing a little time, so this seemed appropriate. Hopefully, I’m not as bad as the guy in the video/track. A brilliant grown-up song with grown-up lyrics:
As mentioned last time, I have begun the second novel. The working title is the portentous The Dry Appetite of the Earth.
This second novel orginally had a different working title, but Oops, I Did It Again wasn’t getting me in the mood for dystopian noir.
One extreme to the other. But then, I struggle with balance.
Not in the physical sense. I’m pretty good at keeping on two feet (yes, that’s me in the photo above, about a hundred years ago).
I am a creature of habit and a routine junkie (or hopeless box-ticker, if you prefer).
Whenever I make a change to my day-to-day life, I always believe in locking in. This means doing whatever the thing is, daily, without fail, for the two months it usually takes to make it less painful.
Like Pilates. Or pegging.
Or, in my case, writing a novel.
I’m a lark (early-bird). As a little kid, I was often up at 6 AM as the weirdest cartoons were on then (Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors or Sharky & George, anyone? No, thought not).
As a big kid, I was a child labourer/had a morning paper round. Early rising was locked in for life.
And so, with the above in mind, for the last fortnight I have risen at 4:50 AM, made a cup of Lipton tea, and written from 5 AM to 7 AM.
And it has been going great. I’ve hit my 1,000-word goal every day (as you can see at the bottom), and I haven’t once tried to stab myself in the eye with a pencil.
I’ve always believed momentum is key to novel-writing, and we are rolling, rolling, rolling.
However, writing has to contend with the paranoia I have about my health, which means daily exercise as well as eight hours of sleep, minimum. I ride my bike the ten miles to university and back each day, and for months I’ve been lifting weights six times a week.
Since June, I’d also stopped drinking for good.
Anyway, when 9 PM rolls around each day, I’m exhausted (I’m probably there by 6 PM, to be honest), and it’s beddy-byes. Unfortunately, my wife is—of course—a night owl.
Even the kids don’t turn in before 9:30 PM, and laugh at my attempts to nod off while they bounce around on my bed and head.
Still, I’m writing two hours a day, my body looks the best it’s ever been, and my anxiety birds have flown the coop.
Everything is peachy, right?
Everything feels balanced, right?
Wrong.
A few days ago, my wife complained that I wasn’t spending any time with her anymore. That I always seemed tired.
Ah.
So, I sat and thought about what to cut. What was the priority?
I thought about going to bed an hour later and shifting the 5 AM-6 AM writing slot to the afternoon. But I knew if I did that, the writing wouldn’t get done.
When it comes to work and study, I am useless in the afternoons.
It’s like my brain has stayed at an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet of treacle tart and tranquilizers.
I’m so obviously useless, in fact, that when I was studying for my law finals, I would study from 4 AM to 1 PM to make the morning last as long as possible.
Yes, I passed my finals.
No, I didn’t have many friends at university.
Back in the now, I asked myself the question: How could I achieve balance as a writer?
Was I a writer, or a wanker who likes to admire himself in budgie-smugglers?
(Spoiler: I’m both, but the writing was much more important to me.)
So, I cut the weight sessions to just a couple a week. Abs be damned.
I felt less sloth-like for the rest of the day. A bit more balance.
I still had the eight hours sleep problem though.
But that 5-7 AM slot was my red line.
Fuck it, when my wife requested I stay up late, I’d stay up late. I’d still get up at 5. It’s not like it was every night (she dances tango and has other, far more entertaining company than me, like Netflix).
I might be a little tired, but I’d suck it up.
Yeah, first-world problems and all that. Dickhead.
The balance question got me thinking about alcohol, too.
It wasn’t like when I gave up drinking it was a pulling the handbrake on the Titanic-style intervention of approaching alcoholic doom.
I barely averaged one beer a week.
I stopped after a dreadful experience in Italy last summer, involving chronic dehydration and a cheap bottle of prosecco. An ill-advised mix.
Anyway, I thought about it, and life is too short.
I’m still going to avoid alcohol (especially the likes of the local pond water), but I’m not going teetotal. I’ll savour a glass of fine wine or shot of the strong stuff when the opportunity arises, or the situation fits:
A meeting with an old friend.
The publication of my novel, Nicksgate.
A time-travel amputation in a Gettysburg hospital tent.
And similar unlikely scenarios.
Again, balance.
It takes time to learn. The Girl (my soon to be twelve-year-old daughter) does not have it. She has unfortunately picked up my stubbornness.
She lives the life of Riley compared to other Korean kids. We allow her to play with her friends pretty much whenever she likes; while her peers are locked up inside the maths academy, the English academy, the jump-rope academy (I kid you not), etc.
However, due to her increasingly busy social schedule, the number of our family days out have drastically shrunk. So much so that last week we sat down with her and asked—begged—for two (two!) weekend days a month with her.
We explained how important it was to us. She concurred and agreed to go out the next day on a walk in the countryside with us. She surprised us with her reasonableness. Perhaps she was becoming maturer.
Come the morning, and expecting us all to be shortly leaving in the car, I hurried in from the gym only to find my wife screaming at her. Really screaming.
My wife is a cool customer. Such screaming is approximately a once every five years occurrence, so I knew the morning had taken a hard left into a chilli festival latrine.
It turned out The Girl had been complaining about the walk, which morphed into asking to play out for ten minutes, which then morphed into asking to play out for an hour, which then became asking to contact friends to play with and well, you already know the rest.
Yep, she still needs to practice balance.
We all do.
But hold on to those red lines.
You too could look great in a pair of budgie-smugglers.
How do you achieve balance in your life?
Do you consider the electronic tagging of twelve-year-olds ethical?
Do you have any Wegovy discounts you could sling me?
Hit me with a comment below.
Speak soon,
JL
The Dry Appetite of the Earth word count: 15,032
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