How Do You Have Time to Write?

People ask me this question sometimes, and lately I've asked back in response, "Well, how do you have time to eat?"

Nobody asks me, "How do you find the time to eat?"

You eat when you're hungry. That's what writing is like for me. If I don't write, something feels starving inside, and I must feed it.

If you're trying to find time to write, maybe seeing it like mealtimes would help. You wouldn't skip dinner--you wouldn't dare--and you wouldn't skip a writing session because you need the nourishment that badly.

Writing, like eating, doesn't have to happen formally. You rarely set a full table setting and bring out the linen napkins to eat your cheeseburger and sling back your coffee, so why not think of writing with the same on-the-go informality? A quick sentence here, a slosh of a paragraph there, a nibble into a chapter, and you're on your way. And, like eating, you can do it while doing others things (believe it or not). You've got laundry going, rice cooking, children playing. . .

And then there's you, typing out a line of dialogue you've had in your head all night.

Sometimes, like in fine dining, great things must simmer and come out with all sorts of pomp. But not every day. Everyday writing, especially for anyone with other jobs and the responsibility of family, might just have to function like drive-thru fast food.

Maybe, for most of us, that's the only way it happens.

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How do you find the time?