I often hear people say they would love to write but they do not have the time to do so, I used to think that a little but as I heard writers on podcasts say that if you want to write then you will find the time. They are all totally right!

Let’s assume that most of us new writers have day jobs (I do) so that’s, let’s say eight hours a day. I suppose we need to sleep so let’s say that’s another six hours. Let’s say four hours for all the little bits and pieces like house work, cooking, eating and so on. That leaves six hours a day to write. Result! 😀

I know what your thinking “what a load of [insert curse word of choice]”

There is no way that we can break the numbers down like that but let me ask you; how many hours a week do we give up to TV, or surfing the web? Or on Facebook or Google+ or Twitter, blogging even. Okay we can argue that social media is building our brands but how often do we pop over thinking “I wonder what’s happening” and most often nothing has changed since we last checked it. How about the time that we spend on video games as well? And lets not forget partners, kids and other family and friends. This is just some of the distractions that come to mind that distract me and I am the worst in the world for getting dis….. Ooo Audi R8………. Sorry where was I? Oh yes getting distracted. That is something I have to work on because I DO get so much done when I turn off the TV and ignore those pesky notifications.

I also write during my lunch breaks at work, sometimes I write in the mornings before I get to work as well. I have the Pages App on my iPhone so I have the ability to write whenever I want, saying that I also carry a pen and notepad with me the majority of the time. I write whilst standing in cue at the post office or the doctors, the dentist (that ones a good distraction as I’m petrified of the dentists!).

The biggest reason we don’t write is because we think we don’t have the time, if you only manage to write a thousand words a week that’s still 52,000 words a year, but if you are writing regularly it won’t just be a thousand words a week because the more we do something the better we get at it. You will find that if you write two hundred words an hour when you first start off then by the time you’ve been writing regularly you’ll find it’ll be four hundred, then six hundred.

Try to write everyday. I’ve spoken about WriteChain before, the App that gives you a link each day that you write, well on this
App you can set a minimum word count, I’ve set mine at a hundred words, that’s a piece of cake for me but if you start off with a hundred words a day minimum you’ll find that you will be smashing that easily and if you want to up it then go for it but all the time you’re writing you keep adding to your chain, and it feels great seeing that number growing (although I forgot to add a days writing into it once and lost a chain that was about thirty days long, I was gutted!)

So turn off any unwanted distractions and get cracking, if you don’t start writing then no one else is going to start writing your books for you. If you want to write just write.

(This post should have gone live about a year ago but for some unknown reason it did not, my bad because at the end of the day I forgot about it. Since then I have learnt a lot about writing and what the worlds distractions are and how to avoid them)