How to Conquer Writer’s Block: Tip 61

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FINDING TIME

Many people are stymied by the feeling that they “have no time.”
I myself need to feel that the day is timeless, that “I have all the time in the world” in order to relax into my writing. Both of these conditions are false, of course. On the one hand, there is always lots of time. On the other hand, that time is exceedingly limited. One solution to this seeming contradiction is to find a time in your day that is inviolable and possible, and to assign yourself a specific, and possible, amount of work. Knowing that your little daily space of time is always, always there for you helps to engender that feeling of limitless time.

Here is how J. Anderson Coats creates her wonderful, multi-starred YA historical fiction, most recently, THE WICKED AND THE JUST:

“Like a lot of writers, I have other commitments outside of writing.
I solve the “where to find the time to write” problem this way:

* Get up every day at five in the morning
* Review plot in my head while showering
* Sit down at the computer by 5:30
* Read the last page or so that I wrote the day before
* Take five minutes to physically sketch out briefly (often in
bullet-point format) in a notebook what I’ll be writing in the
manuscript
* Write for about an hour and a half before my day job. My goal is two
pages a day. It’s achievable; when I surpass it, it’s good for morale
and when I don’t, I feel productive.”

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