Writing Time (Or Not)

 by Charlotte Hinger

Last June I had the pleasure of watching my friend, Michael Gear, receive Western Writers Spur Award for Best Short Fiction. Michael is of one of favorite authors. Not only is he a mesmerizing speaker he is generous in giving other writers a boost. 

Seperately or with his wife, Kathleen, (both are renowned archaeologists)  he is responsible for over 70 novels. I was impressed with Michael's energy after the awards presentation. He greeted each person like they were a long lost friend.

Writing individually or as a couple, the Gears have over 17 million copies of their books in print world-wide which have been translated into at least twenty-nine languages.

The Gear's secret is hard work. According to their website, after a fairy tale romance and subsequent marriage in 1982, they spent the next three years in a primitive cabin, with no running water and only two wood stoves for heat. Mike wrote eight novels before he finally sold one. Kathy wrote five non fiction books, and sold the first novel she ever pitched.

Kathleen told me they each spent two hours daily on social media, fan mail, etc. Talk about hard work! And they write every day. 

There are many times during my life I’ve had to admit my usual modus operandi simply wasn’t working anymore. I’ve gotten trapped psychologically into believing I’m handling things when I’ve not. But it usually boils down to the fact that I'm not working hard enough. 

My latest pitfall is the myth of believing I can “clear time” for writing. I've written about that before. That has never ever worked for me. It’s not working now. It won’t work in the future. This summer has been especially disruptive. Something always happened to blow the “cleared time” sky high.

My best approach has always been to write five days a week. Naturally that expands to include weekends at certain stages.

There were many questions I wanted to ask the Gears. What about the business side of writing? Do they hire help for some of these tasks? 

Although I think my life needs more Tweaking, not Tweeting, I need to develop a consistent social media approach. 

Some people never write when they are promoting. Some, like the Gears, write every day no matter what the circumstances. Some take long breaks between drafts of a book. Some write in multiple genres.

So how do you do it, Type M'ers? Have there been times when you’ve had to switch your approach?