Living in the real world: Making time to write

This year is kicking my butt.  Personal and professional obligations have completely consumed my free time. 

Wait a minute.  Take a step back.  Take a deep breath.  OK, I’m ready to reset.  Like a lot of people, I have a million reasons why I’m not getting the writing throughput that I need.  Each one of these is legitimate.  As I’m writing this I’m delaying running back to the vet to get a prescription (nothing that can’t wait an hour… I’m not a monster) and putting in a solid six hour work day on a Sunday.

The opportunity starts with the recognition is that important things are going to come up all the time, but if I want to be a professional writer there is a certain level of commitment that I need to provide.  I do it for my day gig, and therefore need to extend that out to my writing.

I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions (more on that in a later post), but this year has been a disaster to my word count.  The words are trickling in when they should be gushing forth. 

Here’s what I’m going to do:

• Set some goals – I’ve already done this and I’m working on these now.  If I’m going to make the commitment to be more successful in this aspect of my career, I should know what success looks like.
• Be aware of how I’m spending time – If the TV goes on or not doing anything productive, I need to trigger the thought that I have the opportunity to get at my writing.  You might ask:  ‘What if you don’t know what to write?’  Well in those cases, I don’t worry about it.  If I did, that would be what we call Writer’s Block. 
• Get organized - Schedule the time, get my butt in a seat, and go for it.  Simple.  Effective.  1,000 words before work.  300 words at lunch.  Dedicated time in the evenings and weekends.  It adds up. 

Time to get serious.