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How to Find Time for Writing When Your Plate is Full
By Christine Hucko
When Julia Cameron wrote the book The Right to Write,
she knew that most writers were hungering for the same
thing: more time.
“If only I had more time,” writers often say, “I would
start the novel I’ve been wanting to write,” “I would
flesh out that article idea,” or “I would enter some
contests.”
But do we really need long stretches of “me time” to
complete projects and reach our short- and long-term
writing goals? Julie Cameron, for one, doesn’t think
so.
“One of the biggest myths about writing,” she said in
her book, “is that in order to do it we must have great
swaths of uninterrupted time.” She goes on: “Enough
stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel
is born—without the luxury of time.”
Renate Wildermuth of Pennsylvania is living proof that
it’s possible to meet your writing goals when your plate
is already full. While taking care of two small children
she has finished a novel and is working on a second one;
she has published articles in the San Francisco Chronicle
and the Miami Herald; and she has contributed commentary
to North Country Public Radio.
How does she do it?
She wrote her first novel while her youngest child took
naps. “The rest,” she says, “I squeeze in in Sesame
Street-long swaths.”
When an idea pops into her head, she looks for the
nearest napkin or piece of paper and jots it down before
it has a chance to slip away.
In this seize-the-moment fashion, she then transfers
those ideas to a computer, she gets in touch with editors,
and she writes query letters. By grabbing onto whatever
bits of time she can find—however small—she gets things
done and makes progress.
“I think writing is like saving money,” she says. “A
dollar here and there adds up, and so does a page here
and there. Better to write a little than not at all.”
When I asked author, book editor, and developmental
writing coach Lisa Dale Norton if she thinks it’s possible
for writers to reach their goals by making use of whatever
time is available, she said, “It depends on what those
writing goals are,” but if the goal is to “complete a
polished manuscript for publication, the answer is:
Absolutely.” You can reach your writing goals, Lisa says,
“by carving out little spaces of time.”
Lisa knows this well. She began writing her memoir Hawk
Flies Above: Journey to the Heart of the Sandhills while
teaching full time. The trick is to get the most out of
the spaces of time you carve out for yourself. But how?
“First, you must be firm, focused, and dedicated,” Lisa
says. “Second, you must leave off each day’s writing in
a pregnant place. End on the upbeat, as we would say in
music, leaving the creative soul hanging, waiting to
respond to the unfinished thought.”
When she’s really busy, Lisa sets a writing appointment
with herself, “and then I show up for that appointment,”
she says. “I turn off the phone. I refuse to leave the
house. I lock my door. I go inside, in every sense of
the word. That is the only way I can get any writing done
when I am busy with my clients, and speaking and teaching.”
Like many others, she tries to write in the morning before
the world steps in with its demands, and she keeps her
writing-related materials separated from other work, such
as bills, and business or personal correspondence.
Looking at Renate and Lisa, who have both achieved so much
as writers by “stealing moments,” Julia Cameron would
probably say, “See, I told you it’s possible!”
“The trick of finding writing time is to make writing time
in the life you’ve already got,” Cameron says. “If we learn
to write from the sheer love of writing, there is always
enough time, but time must be stolen like a quick kiss
between lovers on the run.”
BIO
Christine Hucko is a freelance writer and editor. Her work has
appeared in newspapers and magazines, and she regularly edits
articles for an academic journal.
www.christinehucko.com
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