You Have the Time

Catherine Dilts

One hour. My co-author informed me her window of opportunity was constrained that day by being the Mom Taxi. We could skip our writing session. Or try to accomplish something in sixty minutes.

My co-author is my daughter. Last year we embarked on a writing project that was successful, despite our busy schedules. We’re working on a new project right now that we’re both wildly enthusiastic about.

If only we had the proper amount of time to work on it.

Working with my daughter required experimentation to hit the right methodology. We write using shared files, and talk over the phone, at least 90% of the time. Just as working the former day job from home trimmed off get-ready-to-face-the-world time, plus the commute to the office, co-writing via the ether saves a lot of time.

One hour. Even having trimmed off travel to meet in person, that’s still a slim quantity of time.

Becoming a multi-published author while working a fulltime job required workaholic energy. I’ve recently retired, so my expectation was that limitless time would mean even more output. Life gets in the way, in the same manner that the day job used to put hedges around my day.

Why sweat it? Unless you're working under contract, you can take all the time in the world to write your story. Writing fiction can be a strictly creative endeavor. You can write for the love of the wordplay. You can take years to craft the perfect tale. 

I came from a manufacturing environment, and my daughter from the academic world. We’re both accustomed to deadlines. For me, writing is only part creative whimsy. The other part is publication. Getting the story into the hands of readers. Hopefully including the reward of a paycheck. At some point, the product needs to be shipped, and the grades reported.

I do have a book of the heart that will not be quick to complete to my satisfaction. I sometimes spend a crazy amount of time on short stories. But other work needs to happen at a fast pace. Get it done.

Lately, my daughter and I have realized that an amazing amount of work can be accomplished in just one hour. With the clock ticking off the precious minutes, we tear into the task at hand. We get a plot roughed out and an outline half completed.

Here are two suggestions to enable you to get 'er done:

One: Do an on-line search for “write a novel in a year” and you’ll find dozens of helpful articles. Just saying “I will write a novel this year” will doom you to failure. You need to set word counts and deadlines. “I will write a page a day.” That’s approximately 250 words. 365 pages in a year. A novel.

Two: National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) pushes writers to complete 50,000 words in a month. I’ve done this. It’s grueling. The end result is a terrible rough draft. But it’s the rough draft of a novel. Material that can be refined, expanded, trimmed, edited, and tamed into something terrific.

“I don’t have time to write a novel” doesn’t fly with me. If you really want to do it, you will find a way. Or not. There are plenty of other ways to spend your time on this earth. Maybe writing’s not it.

If you do have a story aching to be told, get after it. Nobody’s going to write it for you. Devise a plan. Set quantifiable goals. Hold yourself to your own interior deadlines while you strive for the exterior deadline of publishing contracts and timelines.

You can get it done. One hour at a time. One hour is enough.

(If you have a hard time ignoring life’s distractions while you attempt to write, check out Sunday’s article by Thomas Kies.)