CHUNKS OF TIME

As I mentioned several blogs ago, I've been under the knife for skin cancers. That good-for-you antibiotics make me fuzzy headed. It's really very disconcerting. Here I have this large chunk of time--free time to work on that book I've been trying to restart and complete--and I'm wiped out. Brain doesn't work for extended periods of writing. Concentration is woozy. Terrible!

That doesn't mean I won't get anything done. It will be less than I usually plan. I have a schedule every day where I set aside at least two hours to write. Because of my busy life and scheduled teaching gigs, the chunk of time set aside is not the same each day. But I attempt to get those hours in.

Experts say we should create a time to write, the same as we set aside time to eat and sleep. Yes, there are some people who equate being able to write with the needs of daily living. I think I might be one of them but I do manage to snack at the computer and that is done without a schedule or any will power. It's not the best way to sustain myself.

I often have deadlines set by someone outside my usual schedule--editors, publishers, Homeowners Board I serve on, or lesson plans for my classes. I schedule those. Around them, I still mamage to make time to work on that unfinished novel, create an outline for a new short story, try to understand all the requirements of a POD publisher for my latest book, and all the other ideas flitting thourgh my head.

Those chunks of time are needed by all of us who write. Take advantage of them--make time for them--create that schedule to include them. Once you make the alloted time a part of your writing life, it will be routine to claim those chunks of time.