I’ve always wanted to be a published writer, but with a full-time other job (actually more like time and a half), it’s been easy these last few years to find excuses not to write.
Because writing isn’t easy. It’s often hard, mind-breaking work, coming up with the story, working out the plot, and the day-to-day grind of actually putting it to paper.
So why do it?
I find there’s something deep within me that I access when I write – a creative wellspring that may be hard to reach, but that’s so rewarding when it’s finally tapped, when the story begins to flow out of you onto the page.
Sometimes it takes some downtime – I’ll be driving in the car, listening to a song that just keys into a particular story I’m working on and sets free a chain of thought or an answer to a problem I had been gnawing over for days or weeks.
Sometimes it’s just about getting your butt into the chair and committing to an hour (or two or three) of getting it all out.
Sometimes you don’t have the time – I mean, really don’t have the time. But often for me, it’s a matter of priority.
I need to prioritize my own writing like I do my job. It needs to be important to me that I write, and write regularly. I need to sit down each day and bang it out – when it’s easy, when it’s hard, and when it feels like it’s just impossible.
How do you find time to write?