Category: writers stuff

making time to write

A lot of people have asked me about writing recently, especially how to make time for it and what it takes to write a book. I genuinely enjoy writing, and always have since I was a child. So I always processed my thoughts first through writing, and then through other things. (I used to make up plays and songs, and always set up stages as a kid… I’m not sure where this performing part of me went but I did try being in two bands when I was in my 20s.)

Anyhow, writing for me is a second nature. But there is a difference between writing spontaneously and writing in a more disciplined way. And I think the disciplined part is what people want to know about. It’s not easy. There is something about writing that seems inherently solipsistic; when you sit down to do it you have to get past all the thoughts in your head that say, “I have to be doing something else right now” or “someone else needs me”. No one else can do it for you, and you have to be alone to do it.

Usually when I sit down to write, the first ten minutes to an hour are filled with every thought but the thing I want to be writing about. I have sat in front of my computer just staring for as much as an hour, maybe typing one word, erasing it, and typing again. The dreaded writer’s block.

(more…)