Managing Time to Write

I have a confession to make. I would get a lot more written if I were more methodical in the time of day that I write. I do work on fiction most days. If I'm not writing, I'm thinking about it. That counts as work.

What I don't do is get up, make a cup of coffee, and write. No distractions, just get that 2,000 words in before 9 AM.

I have excuses. We don't have expanded cable, so the only time I can watch the news is 7 AM or 5:30 PM (in the Midwest). So what? Will the world change if I don't watch? It was so easy when I had a small TV with a VCR in it. I have no idea how to use recording capability within the cable system. Probably means I don't have the capability.

I budgeted my time better when I had a day job. In a leadership course long ago, the teacher said, "If you think you manage time better when you have a deadline to meet, it simply means you don't manage your work well the rest of the time."

Bottom line, I need to carve more regular writing time. I can create blocks of time. Others have to write in chunks, which is a bigger challenge. Authors do it. This is from John Grisham’s bio: 

Getting up at 5 AM every day to get in several hours of writing time before heading off to work, Grisham spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, it was eventually bought by Wynwood Press, who gave it a modest 5,000 copy printing and published it in June 1988. 

That might have put an end to Grisham’s hobby. However, he had already begun his next book [The Firm], and it would quickly turn that hobby into a new full-time career—and spark one of publishing’s greatest success stories.

Hmm. 5 AM.  Lately I've started waking up about then. I consider it a curse. I wonder if it would do any good to put the coffee maker next to my bed, and have it primed to drip?

Psychologists say a person is more likely to keep a resolution if they tell people about it. Here goes: I am going to begin writing within one hour of getting up each morning.

If anyone else is considering changing their writing time (or working it into an already-busy schedule), here are a couple of good blog posts I found.

How to Find Time to Write, by Melissa Tydell
http://thewritepractice.com/time-to-write/ 

Finding the Time to Write, Linda Rafferty for Writer’s Digest blog
http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/finding-time-to-write
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