Are you sure you don’t have the time?
by Andy Scheer
If your employer granted you a day off to write, what could you accomplish?
How about tomorrow? Do you have to spend the whole day shopping? What about the next holiday?
But you don’t have to wait for your next eight hours off. As a freelancer, this morning I drafted a magazine article that’s due in a few days. After lunch, I’ll research a future project. But now, I have twenty minutes to write this.
I came to the keyboard knowing what I’d write. Yesterday morning I awoke at four, my mind filled with ideas for the magazine piece. I logged those, then tried to get back to sleep. But I kept thinking about my next blog. So I trudged back to my office with another scrap of paper.
[cryout-pullquote align=”left|center|right” textalign=”left|center|right” width=”33%”]My writing usually comes in three phases: stewing, jotting ideas, and keyboarding. [/cryout-pullquote]My writing usually comes in three phases: stewing, jotting ideas, and keyboarding. All are essential, even if I have the luxury of eight straight hours.
This points me to the strategy I learned from Dr. Dennis Henley: If you want time to write, make it. He suggests setting aside two hours for writing each weeknight — four TV sitcoms’ or two dramas’ worth of time. At the end of a month, you’ll have logged 40 hours of writing. At the end of a year, 480 hours. That’s one dozen 40-hour workweeks.
Tomorrow I might not spend the full afternoon writing. I’ve been putting off a few handyman projects. But while I accomplish those, I can plan my next session at the keyboard.
