I heard someone ask, “How do you make time for writing?” I assume they were not serious about magically creating time. Writers can stop time in their books, but not in real life. There are still just twenty-four hours each day.
If you wish to write, you must take time. Take it from sleep, take it from cooking and eating, take it from the television, take it from social media, but take it! Rip it from the hands of the urgent and mundane pressing in on you from every side.
If you are going to write, there is nothing else to do but write. And if there is something else you would rather do, go do that and forget about writing.
I am not blind to the fact that writing a book is more than just typing the words. Every writer must be his own cheerleader, marketer, promoter, and secretary. All of these are necessary—and they are all incidental. They flow from writing and dry up when you turn off the writing supply.
Neither are writers one-dimensional. We are not just writers. We are parents, children, lovers, enemies… and a million other things. Yet, in all these things we remain writers. We are the husband that writes, the writer friend, the neighbor with the light on at 3 AM typing away at the desk by the window, and the driver not paying attention to the road because they just got a flash of a storyline.
Most people I know need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed. I was reminded the other day that there are times when I must choose who I am. I decided that I am the writer who ____.
Right now, I am the writer who is struggling to be a publisher so he can hand off the weaving of tales to others. There are days when I must snatch time that pursuit, as noble as I try to make it sound, and greedily immerse myself in my own writing.
I know those who think writing is a selfish act and I suppose it is, but then, so is breathing.
Maranatha
