“I just don’t have the time to write,” is a phrase that I have often heard repeated.
My answer is, “Oh, but you do.”
If there is something that you want to do badly enough, you will find the time somehow and writing is no different.
These days we all lead fantastically busy lives with work and family commitments leaving little energy to do much else than collapse in front of the TV every evening. However, with enough motivation you can squeeze in the time to pen your story, blog or novel. A few minutes here, half an hour there, it all adds up, you just need to be a little bit inventive.
I am always writing in my head. I carry a notebook everywhere so that I can jot down ideas as soon as they occur to me. I also keep a current copy of my latest project in the car so that I don’t waste that precious time while I picking up one of my children and, inevitably, waiting for them to come out of the party, college or whatever. Drip, drip, drip, little by little.
The trick is to prioritise. If you make writing your number one priority, you will find the time, in the same way that someone who wants to keep fit manages to go to the gym. Maybe you could get up an hour earlier, go to bed later, write on the train journey home or stop watching so much television. Personally, I find that I write much better in the morning, so I often get up before everyone else at weekends and work for a couple of hours before the chaos of family life kicks in.
If you write fiction, joining a writing group and entering competitions are both good ways to get used to writing to deadline. When you have to produce a piece of work by a certain date, you invariably find that you do.
The trouble with writing a full length book is that it is a big commitment and takes a lot of time to get it right. The trick is to break it down into achievable chunks. Aim to write an outline, a chapter of even a set number of words and your book will start to grow.
Of course, there will always be something waiting in the shadows to throw you off track; a sick child or relative who needs looking after, a demanding client at work or simply a friend who needs your ear. When you really don’t have a spare moment, use the experience to feed into your next creative project so that when you do next sit down to write, you will have new material.
Writing isn’t easy but the more you do it, the easier it will become. The same applies to getting down to it in the first place; the more you look for ways to find the time to write, the more time you will find you have.