Here’s a horrible truth: no one has time to write. This includes fulltime writers. Ask any fulltime writer, and he’ll moan that he’d love to write a novel, or a screenplay, or a book of essays, but he doesn’t have the time, he’s too busy with his bread and butter writing.
The good news is that you can write whatever you’ve set your heart on writing, even if you have NO time.
Here’s how:
=> One: Commit
Start by deciding what you want to write. Do you want to write magazine articles? A novel?
Grab a piece of paper and a pen. Look at your watch. Complete this sentence in ONE minute: “I would love to write —”
Done? Please don’t read on until you’ve done the exercise. 🙂
OK. Now, before your left brain kicks in with a huge pile of negativity, commit to this thing that you have your heart set on writing.
I’ll count down, from three to one, and at the count of one, please take a deep breath and say: “I commit to writing (whatever it was that you wrote in the exercise above).”
Three, two, one say aloud: “I commit to writing —-”
=> Two: Write for five minutes
How much can you write in five minutes?
Let’s find out. You may not have time to do this exercise immediately, but do it in the next couple of hours. You can even do it in your lunch hour, or in the car before you set off for home this evening.
Write for five minutes about the writing project you’ve committed yourself to.
“Writing about” is just talking to yourself on paper. It’s free- writing, that is — writing in stream-of-consciousness style, without lifting your pen from the page. Just keep on writing. If you can’t think of what you want to write, then just write that: “I can’t think of what to write next, look at that little boy over there with an ice-cream cone, I can’t” etc.
How much did you manage to write in five minutes? A page? A page and a half?
If you write a page a day for a year, you’ve written a book.
If you’ve honestly got NO time, you still have five minutes here and there. Snatch five minutes from your lunch hour or get to a meeting ten minutes early and use five minutes to write. If all else fails, lock yourself in the bathroom and write for five minutes.
=> Three: Get a writing buddy
Share your writing with someone. This keeps you accountable. Find someone (if you don’t know anyone, try the online world), who wants to do the same kind of writing you want to do. To keep yourselves writing, you’ll swap pages each day. Simply send whatever you’ve written that day to your writing buddy.
This work can be completely unrevised, and unedited. Just send it. Your writing buddy can read it, or delete it immediately after she’s checked how much you wrote.
Or you may decide that you’ll swap pages once a week. Or never. Maybe you’ll just ring up your buddy and you’ll exchange word counts.
How you manage the relationship is up to you. You’ll find that simply knowing that you have someone to report to will help you to keep your commitment.
=> Four: Take a course — find a mentor
Taking a course ensures that you’ll write. It will also provide you with a writing mentor. Many online venues (like Digital-e) provide courses. Or you may want to take a college course locally.
=> Five: Make writing the first thing you do every day
Have a legal-sized notepad and pen beside your bed, and write a couple of pages as soon as you wake up. Cover two sheets of paper with words. Many writers, including Dorothea Brande, who is famous for this “writing first” technique, have recommended it, and it works.
=> Six: Give up your attachment to the outcome
If you say to yourself: “I’m going find the time to write and I’m writing a bestseller” you’re just about guaranteed to fail. You’re putting too much pressure on yourself. Relax. Tell yourself you’re writing because it’s fun, and if it’s published that’s OK, if not, that’s OK too.
To carve out time to write, you must make the commitment to writing first. Once you’re committed, you’ll find the time to do it, even if that time is in five-minute segments.
The benefits of finding the time to write are immense. You’ll feel better about yourself. You’ll gain in confidence and self- esteem. And you’ll discover, or rediscover, that writing is a lot of fun, and that makes it worth doing.
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