June 14, 2006

How do you find the time?

I believe it was Stephen King who said, "Read four hours a day and write four hours a day. If you cannot find the time for that, you can’t expect to become a good writer." I admire people who can do that. I know I certainly can’t 🙂

Sure, I would love to read four hours a day even if I can’t write four hours a day – I’d probably get too tired of writing after a couple of hours. But what with working eight hours a day, doing a hundred other things in between, finding an hour to write a day is a big deal. No, this is not going to be a whine. Or then again, this is perhaps a bit of a whine but it’s also a look at how much time you can realistically devote to writing if writing is not your primary occupation. (Heck, at the moment, writing is not an occupation at all as far as I’m concerned :p The only money I get from writing these days is from some Google ads on a site I blog at …)

I can understand the need to keep to a regular schedule. Writing is a job just like anything else. You have to keep at it daily if you want to get anywhere. But the issue is always, how do you keep at it when there are so many other things clamouring for your attention? :p When I wrote my first novel, I would set aside a couple of hours every evening after I finished work. I would write till I had completed 2,000 words – that was my daily target. I think it took me about three months at that pace to complete my novel. Now that I’ve started my second novel, I find that I can’t be even as ambitious as that. So far, I’ve gotten like two pages a day and that is barely 500 words a day! Perhaps once I pick up steam I’ll do better or maybe I just need to let go of this whole idea that "I have no time to spare" and simply write? 🙂

Tags: Personal, Writing
Posted by Fahim at 6:47 am   Comments (3)

3 Responses to How do you find the time?

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#1
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Laurie 14 June 2006 at 7:42 am

One solution would be for us to stop watching movies and television episodes. No more Scrubs or Joey for you!:shock:

#2
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Wayfarer 03 July 2006 at 4:46 pm

“Read four hours a day and write four hours a day.”

Hmmm… Well, mind that writing is a job for Mr. King… So he cannot complaint about having to work eight hours a day: four reading and four writing, with a 30′ lunch break.

And mind also that he works mainly at home, so he doesn’t have to spent another two hours from home to the job and back again.

Surely that motto may be applied to professional writers, but surely it won’t apply to part-time bloggers, amateur writers and so on.

I wonder if Dan Brown has ever read 4 hours and writed another 4… 😛

— Wayfarer

P.S. Claim of the day: Release Blog 8 Beta 4 or I’ll move to Movable Type and make it look like an accident… :-p

#3
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Fahim 03 July 2006 at 7:56 pm

You’re way behind the times, Wayfarer :p Blog 8.0 Beta 4 was released ages ago – in fact, the public beta release currently stands at 8.0 beta 5. Check for your self 🙂

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