Right now, I am prepping to sell my house. Granted, I’ve moved a lot due to corporate relocations. That said, I’m no stranger to the whole packing up and decluttering process.  But as you can imagine, I haven’t had much time to write lately. This has been rough. For me, writing is a stress-coping mechanism. It’s the way I make sense of the world. I’m not gonna lie. I’m a bit on edge these days. Worst of all, whenever I look at my unopened laptop, the guilt creeps in. You should be writing! You should be editing your novel! that little voice inside my head screams.

When that voice really gets going, I can feel myself starting to freak out. You know what I’m talking about…That push/pull feeling of never having enough hours in a day. That podcaster shouting through your AirPods, saying that by adjusting your writing goals, you’re, in fact, micro-quitting. “Okay! Okay,” I’m almost inclined to shout back at her. “I’ll make the time. I’ll do it. I’ll write.”

But then I remind myself that a big part of being a writer is living. Even fiction writers put themselves and their lives in their stories. If they tell you they don’t. They’re lying. That fight we had with our spouse about what to do with all the crap in our garage that the realtor wanted gone yesterday will somehow, someday, find its way into one of our future novels. And that knot in our gut that tightened as we sifted through our adult son’s middle school soccer trophies and weighed the pros and cons of dragging them to our future house will seep into one of our scenes, too. It’s inevitable. I’m not saying that the specifics of the situation won’t morph. That the soccer trophies won’t transform into horse show award ribbons, or that our son won’t become a daughter. The details will likely change. But the essence of the experiences will be there, and those experiences are priceless. They give and give. Our daily experiences are creative goldmines. They’re way better than writing prompts.

But what about that conference lecturer who said our writing would suffer if we don’t write daily? Is this valid? Up to a point. I’m not saying you shouldn’t make your writing a priority. Except in rare cases, I write first thing every morning. Or that you shouldn’t set goals and deadlines. Having a solid work ethic is everything. What I am saying is that writing, combined with life, is more compelling.

It’s more authentic, more relatable, more nuanced. Soaking in life gives your writing flavor. Trust me, you’ll remember what it felt like to pack up those Christmas decorations in that dormered attic. The crick in your neck from leaning over. How you kept sneezing from all of the dust. The sweat that dampened your t-shirt and made it stick to your spine. And someday, you’ll use those attic memories to write an amazing scene.

Listen up. Here’s my big takeaway. Writing is so much more than putting words on a page or clicking laptop keys until you make your daily word count. The writing or typing is only the second part of the process. What comes first are the thoughts, feelings, actions, and conversations that you experience before they converge in your brain to form your stories. I like to call that first part of novel writing LIFE. Give yourself permission to lead yours. You won’t regret it!