If you do this, you can find time to write
But you have to want it.
The day is only 24 hours long.
And there are always a bunch of things that you need to do during that time, right?
You might have a job, go to school, have a family you need to interact with. You might need to exercise, eat and—god forbid—sleep. You might have to grow food, gather supplies, fight zombie hamsters.
So, how do you find time to write in there when there are demands everywhere?
You find it.
You just find it.
I know! I know! Easier said than done.
When I was writing my very first book, I’d write on anything and everything because I was so compelled to get that story out and so busy being a newspaper reporter and mom and volunteer and working also at our local Y. I’d write on napkins during swim meets, on the backs of play bills waiting to review a community theater production, waiting in the car to pick up my kiddo. I would write everywhere and everything.
If you are a bit less obsessed than that, then you can do what amazing author Toni Morrison suggests which is to “write at the edges of the day.”
So, get up at tiny bit earlier. Stay up a tiny bit later. Find that rhythm that works for your particular brain.
For a lot of us, we have to give up something to do this. Maybe it’s sleep. A longer shower. Watching videos. Scrolling. Reading a book. Actually eating lunch during your lunch break.
Here’s what I tell myself: If I have friends with full-time jobs and families who can find the time to train for a marathon, I can find the time to write.
Even if that’s writing in the edges.
Here’s the next step though: You have to schedule in that writing time into the edges.
You have to want to be a writer as much as your friends want that marathon. That’s how you write a novel or ten blog posts or a memoir or whatever it is that you’re writing. You have to want it enough to schedule it in.
For a lot of us, using a deadline helps us move our writing forward and schedule it in. For some of us, that causes panic and we stop all progress.
You do you. You do what works for you.
And, finally, a big element that I talk to people I coach about is this: You have to think about why you’re a writer.
Why do you want to write?
Is it a good enough reason for you to make you write in those edges and create a schedule and motivate you to the end? And maybe give up doom scrolling with zombie hamsters every night?
I bet it is.
You get to do this, you know. If you want to be a writer, you can be one. The edges are a really good place to start.
PLACE TO SUBMIT
New Beginnings Writing Contest Four Tulips
Following the theme of “New Beginnings,” Four Tulips is accepting submissions of short fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry following the submission guidelines below.
The New Beginnings writing contest is open until May 20.
All contest submissions receive either an acceptance or rejection notification, and all contest submissions are automatically entered to the end-of-year contest with a cash prize.
Submission Guidelines
Prose: Submit no more than one prose piece at a time. Prose formatting should be single-spaced and no longer than 2,000 words. Submit as Microsoft Word or PDF.
Poetry: Submit no more than three poems at a time. Poems should be formatted single-spaced as a Microsoft Word or a PDF file.
Include your full name, the title of your submission, your email address, and a short 100-word bio. We do not accept submissions previously published in other publications including those that have been self-published. We do, however, accept submissions previously published on personal blogs.
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