Finding Time to Write

Let's face it; taking the time to write can often fall to the bottom of the list of priorities. For many of us, there's that little thing called the paying job; you know, the one that actually pays the bills. That task demands a certain amount of hours. Then there's the whole eating habit, which also demands a few minutes of our time; not to mention the hours eaten by trips to the grocery store because we forgot to buy everything we needed for the week.

There's also family time - no, not necessarily warm fuzzy time spent being the perfect parent as your child (or children) smile adoringly at you as you play some improving board game and sip homemade hot chocolate as the fire crackles in the fireplace, but the time spent doing laundry (and the ensuing search for socks) or throwing your back out as you flip the mattress or making cupcakes in the dead of night because dear little child only told you at bedtime that Ms. Teacher is throwing a class party tomorrow and your darling volunteered to bring baking. And no, you can't pass off store-bought goodies as your own, because the same little treasure has shared with her class her love of your chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles.

Aren't kids great?

Anyway, somewhere in this utopian existence, you know, you know you're supposed to be carving out time to write. If you don't, you know, you know you'll have that little voice whining in your head as you lay your head down on the pillow at night,"You didn't write today. Not a word. No, writing a grocery list doesn't count."

Take my advice. Find the time; even it's only ten minutes. It doesn't have to be two dedicated hours on the computer as you fling out 2,000 or more glistening words, it might be a few snatched moments as you're sitting in a parking lot, or on the commuter train, or wherever. NOTE: I am not advocating writing and driving at the same time. This is foolish, not to mention potentially life-threatening.

I confess, there are days when I try to placate the whining little voice by pleading that at least I wrote a blog post. Other days, I convince it that thinking about my next plot point counts as writing. No, no actual words were written, but my thinking has untangled several problems that will make future writing easier.

Or maybe you're one of those wonderful, gifted writers, that always find time to write and never has to argue their case with the whining voice. If that's you, reading this blog post has wasted time you could have been spending writing.

I feel somewhat victorious - in a very schadenfreudey kind of way.