Priority

Over the summer, I was presenting a news writing class at a conference for reporters. I was asked this question, "how do you find the time to write when you work full-time as the publisher of a newspaper?"

The answer is really simple. Priorities.

I have known many people who say they want to be a writer, or claim to be a writer, but find reason after reason after reason not to write.

Just Thursday, I sat down at the keyboard at about 8:30 or so to write. I had to crank out five pages. That's my daily goal. Five pages.

Within 10 minutes the phone rang with an offer for a late night dinner. As much as I'd have liked to have gone, I had to beg off.

I have my priority.

I can usually tell how serious someone is about their writing when I try to help them find the time to write.

"Wake up an hour earlier" I say. "But I need my sleep."

"Write during your lunch break," I say. "And skip lunch?"

"Set a time every night." "But on Mondays I have this. On Tuesdays I have that. On Wednesdays I have the other thing."

I am often amazed at the people who just HAVE to write. The HAVE to get it out of them, but they never ever do.

It is simply giving your writing a place of some sort of priority in your life. I often exchange e-mails a woman who is a short story writer. She is married. Has two kids. Her husband is a military man, which requires him to be away from home. Yet, she has established a two hour period four days a week thta is her writing time. She's carved it out, hires a babysitter if she needs to, and writes for those four two-hour periods. She has made it a priority.

I look at people. They have spouses, children, jobs, soccer, karate, Boy or Girl Scouts, and they still find the time to go back to college. If these people can do that, you and I can find time to write.

The young man who asked me about finding time. I asked him, how often do you go out drinking with your buddies? His response was almost every night. Can he scale that back? Or more importantly, is he willing to scale that back to write?

I know it is tough, and maybe I take it to the extreme, however, I look at it very much like the guy who starts his own business. We works endless hours now for a wonderful return in the future.