Writing
tending to laundry...
making a bed...
cleaning a closet...
changing son out of pajamas...
combing out daughter’s tangles...
or washing the dishes.
Write when you can: at night, the five minutes in the morning when the house is quiet. If you're having trouble finding time, you may have to shuffle up your list of priorities and put writing closer to the top. The more time you carve for writing, the more you will take yourself seriously as a writer. The wonderful aspect of time is that it adds up! Every little bit of writing counts. (I don't watch television or spend much time blogging--that's a trade off, but one that allows me more time to write and read.) For me, the bottom line is that I will never look back on my life and regret that I didn't make more time to clean my house or spend more time watching television.
2. "I don't have good ideas."
Please. That thought is simply getting in the way of a good idea. Remove yourself from the subjectivity of whether your idea is "good" or "bad" and write what needs to be written. There's room for an inner critic in the process of writing, but he/she is not invited to participate in the beginning stages. Therefore, write with wreckless abandon. Scribble your ideas anywhere you can. I highly recommend keeping a writer's notebook. For me, it is my treasure chest, where all my ideas can congregate without the disapproving eye of anyone. Like my house, my writer's notebooks are messy, filled with ideas that I may or may not want to adopt. I make my environment idea friendly; think of it as having bird houses for ideas. Look around this page to see ways I house my ideas so that they feel welcome.
Sometimes an idea grows so big that it no longer fits in a notebook. At that point, I give it its own box where I continue to make deposits. The box gives an idea room to breathe and develop. (The first box is for my second novel, GIRL TO THE CORE, the second cage-like box is for my third novel in progress, THE EXECUTION OF CARNEGIE RHODES. The third box--notice the lid--is the box I kept and finished for STRAY, my first novel.
I sketch ideas in writer’s notebooks. (Above.) Author Ralph Fletcher has some great books about how to keep a writer’s notebook.
Above and below are examples of how I get ideas on paper. I like to make a mess and then sift through and find what’s for keeps.
What's stopping you from writing your own book?
Some excellent excuses for not writing and how to shatter these excuses into teensy pieces so you can go forward with your writing:
1. "I don't have enough time."
All we have is time. It's a matter of how we choose to use it. Allow me to illustrate. (I need a moment to take some snapshots of things I could be doing around the house this very minute instead of writing--I'm back.) If I chose to have an immaculate home, I wouldn't have time to write books.
So, instead, I keep a somewhat messy dwelling. Often times I make the choice to write instead of:
