If you want to write, write.
We make time for the things we
think are important. If you’re not making time for it, then it’s not important
enough to make its way to the top of the list.
Think about it: when someone dies, people drop what they’re
doing for the funeral. Nobody waits to die until it’s convenient, or good
traveling weather for family. And yet, people manage to make it to funerals
more often than not. This is because that event is of the utmost importance.
If you really want—need—to write, then make the time. Five
minutes a day, if that’s all you have. Jot ideas down in a little notebook.
Take your laptop to the bathroom. Call your home phone while you’re walking and
leave yourself a message with a story idea. One of the authors I work with, Stephen Fender, travels 2.5 hours to work. Each way. He drives, rides a ferry, and then drives
some more. While he’s on the ferry, he writes. Chaos is undoubtedly going on
all around him, but he writes, because it’s a good chunk of time he can use. If
five hours of each of your weekdays was spent commuting, you’d make the most of your
hands-free time, too.
One author on Goodreads said he’d typed most of a manuscript
on his iPhone while riding the city bus each day to and from work. Many moms—like my Coffee Chat buddy, S.K. Anthony—write in the wee hours of the night after children are asleep. Thirty minutes
for lunch? Write for fifteen and eat for fifteen. It can work if you want it to
work!
