Creating Time to Write

By Shannon Evans

Making time to write is really difficult in our intrusive modern world. The siren song of email beckons us to respond to its 'in your face' immediacy. Blackberries chirp and ding in public places like a chorus of obnoxious magpies in discordant harmony. Telephone, email, and people clamor for my attention all day long. If only I could find some peaceful downtime I might be able to make time to write.

The technologies we surround ourselves with are all actually useful tools that we can manipulate to make our lives richer, more convenient, etc. However, when that same technology begins instead to manipulate us, then it ceases to be useful and becomes a distraction. How did this happen? How did our society become obsessed with email, texting, and instant messaging? Simply take a teenagers cell phone away even for a day and watch them go into a rage faster than a drug addict hauled off to a detox unit.

The technological breakthroughs of the last 25 years in communication are mind boggling. The fact that I can sit at my computer Washington and have a live camera conversation with a good friend who is sitting on her balcony in front of her computer in Singapore blows me away!

Even with all the nano-technology out there, no one has quite figured out a formula for generating more time to write and be creative. It is interesting that the only way to actually create more useful available time requires the lowest level of available technology. This technology predates the cell phone and the computer itself. The easiest way to create more time for writing is merely a function of the earliest technological breakthrough of the Industrial Revolution: The ON-OFF switch.

So simple but so hard to use... but you owe it to yourself to develop the discipline to disconnect and start writing. Turn off the phone, turn off the email, turn off the instant messenger, and make the time to write.

• Your time is incredibly valuable
• Commit in writing to write
• Put your writing schedule in your calendar...in ink!
• Get organized before sitting down to write - time spent researching is not writing time

You have to schedule down-time for writing much like you schedule time at the gym and doctor appointments. Let people who matter know that you are not available at that time daily. Block out at least 90-120 minutes per day to dedicate to your writing craft.

Make a contract with yourself to write X hours per week or X number of pages per week. Create a viable plan that produces a measurable output. Start small and build more goals for time and output as you become more disciplined in your writing schedule.

Get a wall calendar and a day planner and schedule time for your writing. You and your writing are important. Make the time to write articles, blog entries, or your next chapter.

Writing with discipline and purpose can be hard at first but over time it becomes an ingrained personal routine. But beware! Writing regularly can become as addictive as email, IM, and texting.

Shannon Evans, senior editor and owner of http://www.mywritingmentor.com lives with her best friend Rick on Bainbridge Island in the Puget Sound just a "ferry ride from Seattle." She maintains two blogs:
http://www.authormarketingtools.wordpress.com
http://www.mywritingmentor.wordpress.com

She works with her two Labrador assistant editors, Mocha and Luke, and her feline copy edit assistants, Caesar and Yoda. Shannon is widely recognized as one of the top writing coaches for non-fiction authors. With over 17 years teaching composition and technical writing to native and non-native English speaking students she knows how to help every writer make every word count.

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