It CAN be done

One of the grips you hear wannabe writers say most is, "I don't have enough time."

Pshah! Don't give me that crap!

Yes, writing takes time, and I always wish I had more time for my writing ... even just some free time to think about my writing. But it can be done. You can work at your writing nearly no matter how little time you have.

The last year or so of my life has been one of the busiest ever. I've moved, quit a full time job, started my own small business, gotten a part time job which is practically a full-time job of late ... all the while I keep working on my writing.

I haven't written a lot of short stories in this past year, but I've never stopped more than a day or two at a time working on my trilogy. I've taken to carrying a briefcase or backpack with me just about everywhere I go. Why? Because I carry around hard copies of the third book of the trilogy, along with a clipboard and red pen. If I'm waiting in line somewhere, have a free minute or two at the job, or even if I'm sitting at a looooong red light ... I get to work editing.

Of course at some point I actually have to sit down at my Mac to make corrections and do rewriting, but I've found I can get a good bit done in a short amount of time. Even if only edit and correct two pages in one night, I still feel like I'm moving ahead.

Most nights I get home late, about 1 a.m., take the beagle for a walk, spend a half hour with the other half, then I break out my marked pages and do a little work. I try to save major changes, big rewrites and additions that need to be written, for days I know I won't be working other projects as much. Here and there I squeeze in a few hundred words a night on a short story.

It might take a long time, then, to finish a project, but it gets done a little at a time. I love it when, as happened a couple of weeks back, I can sit down and in that one sitting pump out a short story, but that rarely happens. As someone else has said, writing (especially novels) is like running cross country, not sprinting. It's about pacing.

You can write. Just take five minutes a day, if that's all you've got. If you only write one word a day, at least it's one word closer to being done.