Satyal on Finding Time To Write

Rakesh Satyal, author of Blue Boy, guest posts at Nathan Bransford's blog about how he finds time to write. Excerpts:

Most writing instructors, and many established authors, extol the benefits of a morning regimen-cum-biological clock approach: you get up, go straight to your computer (or other writing instruments), write a thousand words, and call it a day, with perhaps some revision of those thousand words later in the evening. Unfortunately, not only the mutant pace of my workdays but the ensuing rollercoaster reaction of my body can preclude this sort of schedule from taking root. …

What I have come to realize about myself as a writer is that I respond much better to thinking of the scope of a particular scene that I am writing and then envisioning the corresponding manpower that I will need to bring it to life. And then I look for loopholes in my schedule that I can refashion as writing time. …

Writing is a difficult process, to be sure, and it demands from us determination, a dedication to a larger artistic goal, and, perhaps most of all, the a priori arrangement that our lives, on the whole, will make room for it. To that last end, especially, I am always thinking in the back of my mind, at any given point, when my next available moment for a time to sit down and write may be. I mean “available” not just physically but mentally.

Read the whole thing. Satyal's approach has struck a chord with me. I tend toward fanatical scheduling, and taking up the pen regularly hasn't been too terribly difficult. But lately work, home remodeling, starting an MBA program and dealing with health issues have strained the system. Sometimes it's simply a challenge committing the ideas to paper, moving them from idea to actuality before they evaporate. You have to do it, though. You may be writing on the inside, but no one can read what goes on behind your eyes.

(Picture: CC 2008 by steepways)