Writing is so important to me. My first memory as a child was writing a story. When I write, I am working within my truest purpose and honor my life. In front of my script, striving for its greatest good, I know myself.
Yet I have always struggled with when to write. I observe successful writers and their strict regimens and confess, everything I’ve written has come from different moments of the day, stretches of the year, odd bunches of hours.
Flurries, temporary habits, spells that take over until I’m done and ready and off we go.
Now I’ve come to a space where I see my writing soar even further in its importance to me. I understand my voice and ideas can move at much faster rates, and you, I know you feel the same way, given the hours, you would better commit to your own gift.
Why have I not found the time? Why do I struggle with making this room for what I do best? We understand what this means to us, everything it provides, so when and how do I find more time to write?
The important events in our lives are scheduled. They come with appointments. We get married at a certain time, the soccer match begins, we see the dentist. We set a time, we clear a path, and nothing else is scheduled except this particular and singular event.
Writing is your event. It’s not an inconsequential random task on a to-do list. We need to make an appointment with what matters most.
What time of day is best for you? You’re busy, you have responsibilities, you’re doing many things. Yet if I set a specific time to write every day and do nothing else, I respect it as the important engagement it is, and when we do, we find our focus and we begin to produce.
How long should your appointment be? How many pages should you complete? What should you accomplish when it’s time for you to write?
If you pick a time to write, it won’t matter what you finish at your scheduled session. It can be different scheduled times on different days. You can schedule writing late at night, or before the world wakes up, on the way home on the train or during a work or class break. Now it’s all perfectly planned and will soon add up like rabbits.
The key is picking a time for the important engagement of writing today and surrender to practice. Do not seek the best in what you write, in any given moment, just be on time. Show up 15 minutes early, to ready yourself, then release. Once you have honored your commitment and done work for your story, the rest of your day will reveal itself in a completely new existence, for you and you alone have given yourself the sacred time to write, which is such a wonderful thing to give to a writer, a writer like you and me.
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