« Where Do You Write? | Home | Are You a Blogger? »

How Often Do You Write?

Posted by Deborah on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

Think about how often you write every day. I’m not talking about whatever business writing you may have to do throughout the course of the day during your regular, non-writing, 9-5 job. No, I am talking about writing articles, blogs, or short stories. How much time do you really spend writing?

It is a hard question to answer because you have probably never spent time trying to quantify the amount of time you write. Do you spend as much time writing as you think you do? Talking about writing doesn’t count. Reading about writing doesn’t count either. When you say that you are going to the den to write, do you sit right down and write or do you spend a few minutes checking your email first?

Trust me, I am just as guilty of these offenses as the next writer. I say I’m going to write and I spend the first 15 minutes checking and answering my email. This is okay too, because I have slotted time for my email. I am not, however, counting my email time as my writing time, and that is the point. If I carve two hours out of my day for writing, I do not want to fritter away that precious time. We all have lives outside of writing, and people or things in our lives that need our attention. My two hours is precious and I want to focus on writing, so how do I do it?

I actually set a timer for 15 minutes. When the buzzer goes off, I shut down the email so it cannot be a distraction. My cell phone is turned off and then I settle in for two hours of writing. There will always be distractions, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are writing for three hours when in fact you spent 30 minutes of that time instant messaging and checking email.

If you don’t believe me, why not start a log to track your writing time? I guarantee by the end of a week you will see how much time you are wasting. I agree that email is an excellent medium of communication, but it can also be a complete time waster. Once you see how much time you are spending actually writing, figure out a way to double that time. I have found that the more time I make for writing, the more time I want to spend writing. If you are a writer, you need to spend time writing. No exceptions. Now hop to it!