Don’t Feel Guilty About Writing

One of the problems that I find with working from home as a writer, is that others equate it with not having a job.

So they come round, or ring up and expect me to be always available.

Over the years I’ve trained them all to respect the fact that I do work for a living and that I do need time to do it, so I banned them with disturbing me during office hours.

And for a while it worked but now I find myself backsliding and letting them interrupt me again.

The problem is that I often feel guilty about putting my writing before everything and everyone else.

And it’s this unnecessary guilt that I need to lose.

I mean where would JK Rowling be today if she’d given in to her co-workers’ demands to have lunch with them instead of using her lunch hour to write her second Harry Potter novel?

And where would Stephen King be if he hadn’t put his kids to bed early every night so that he could write his next great horror novel while his wife was out at her night job?

These writers put their work before demands from others, especially unimportant demands.

So that’s what I have been doing too.

And do you know what?

It feels good to be back in control of how I use my time and being able to get more writing done.

So if you have others who insist on interrupting your writing time, don’t feel guilty

Just write and make them wait.

And if you need more motivation to write more and spend less time on other less important things, take a read through the Villains' book.

It’s all about being a true villain and explains how to put your mission (your writing) first.

It’s a quick yet insightful read.

I’ve read it a dozen times already and I might just read it again.

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A Time To Write That I Didn't See Coming

“Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.” ― Ray Bradbury

Even though I live in what is called 'The Sunshine State' it has been raining for 3 days now.

I don't like the rain. I know we need it, but I don't like it when it rains heavily for days on end like this.

And today is forecast to be another day of rain.

It's not even 9am and it's already been raining steadily since I got out of bed this morning. In fact, I could hear it on the roof a soon as I woke up.

This weather doesn't exactly inspire me to get up and do anything.

And speaking of which, did you see the image I've included of the guy trying unsuccessfully to get up and function? Hilarious. I actually 'borrowed' it from someone I follow on facebook called Meanwhile in Australia. https://www.facebook.com/MeanwhileInAustralia/.

The image is exactly how I felt yesterday when I saw it was raining AGAIN.

But guess what?

Once I got up and had a couple of cups of coffee to get me going, I figured why not see how much writing I could get done because there was nothing else to do. It was raining hard so I definitely wasn't going anywhere and everything outside was wet and everything inside was damp. It's still summer here so the weather is wet and hot.

So I sat down yesterday morning and started writing. I have a new project that I'm working on so I had plenty lined up to do.

And surprisingly, I got a lot done, and by the time I'd finished for the day I was pumped with my progress.

So the humid, rainy day that I thought wasn't good for anything, turned out to be one of my best writing days ever.

And it made me wonder how many other great windows of writing opportunity I've missed, just because I didn't feel like I could write.

So today I'm going to rinse and repeat what I did yesterday, even though, when I heard the heavy rain when I woke up, I felt like the image above again, but I got up, showered off the sweat (boy is it humid) and now I'm ready for another non-stop day of writing, despite (or maybe because of) the constantly pounding rain on the roof.

Can't wait.

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How Much Writing Time Have You Wasted?

It happens every day.

You set out with the best intentions of getting plenty of writing done.

You set your alarm clock, get up on time, have breakfast, do the dishes and are sitting down at your desk bright and early.

But then you check your emails, or start reading online articles, or check your rss feed, take a not-so-quick peek at Facebook and BAM! The morning is almost over.

Or there might be other days when you just simply can't get going and so many other things get in the way.

So how much writing time have you been wasting lately on things like TV, gossiping, coffee mornings, drinking, and other time wasting activities?

Recently, when I was listening to an audio of a talk given by one of the giants in marketing, Gary Bencivenga, he said that how he stays productive is that whenever he's doing something he always asks himself, "Is this the best use of my time?" (paraphrased)

And if it isn't, he stops what he's doing and does something useful instead (or what he should be doing).

I thought that this was a really clever way to stop wasting time on things that don't matter so that I can spend more time on things that do.

And so far it's not only working, but it's made me realise how many things I waste my time on every day.

Like this morning, for instance. I made a couple of changes to one of my website pages and a couple of words at the bottom of it weren't formatting correctly. I kept trying to find out why so I could fix the problem and then I asked myself, "Is this the best use of my time?"

I realised that it wasn't and that a couple of incorrectly formatted words didn't matter. So I uploaded the webpage and got on with my writing.

See how simply that works?

Try it for the rest of today and see what a difference it makes.

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Time is Really All We Have

We all talk about time and say things like "don't waste my time" or "I don't have time."

But have you ever thought that time is all we really have.

Our life is our time. So if someone or something is wasting our time, it's wasting our life.

That's why it's important to make the most of our time (our life).

So to be a successful writer means to find the time to write.

But it's all too easy to say that you don't have more time to write because of work and family commitments.

Naturally, there may be pockets of time somewhere that you can use to get more writing done.

But who wants to work every hour of every day, right?

The other alternative is to write more in the time you have.

Do you know that when J K Rowling wrote her second Harry Potter book she was a single mother and had a full-time job so her only spare time to write was her lunch hour which she spent at her computer writing. She guarded that one hour a day ferociously.

The 'trick' is to write faster.

It's well-known that writing faster usually means writing better because you don't have time to second-guess yourself and it also leaves no option for procrastinating. You just don't have time for it.

Author Rachel Aaron is best known for her book, 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love where she demonstrates how she increased her writing speed from 2,000 words an hour to 10,000 words an hour, which she had to do because she couldn't find more time to write so she had to write more.

You can read more about her amazing book at http://viewbook.at/2kto10k.

I've read it and I can tell you that it can really help you to increase your writing speed.

And like they say, I can write better when I'm writing faster because I don't have the time to worry about anything. I just have to keep writing.

I use a timer to keep me on track. I set it and see how much writing I can get done in the time that I've allowed myself, which is usually in repeated sessions of 33 minutes and 33 seconds as taught by the late, great copywriter, Eugene Schwartz.

It really helps me to make the best of the writing time that I have every day.

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