Finding the Time to Write – the age-old dilemma that every writer has to endure.

If you’re anything like me, I have to hold down a full time job (the large fortune from the book sales hasn’t reached me yet) and manage a household of five, as well as all my other responsibilities.Ans between getting some essential outdoor time and R&R, which involves reading, watching TV and - I'm ashamed to admit - endless doom scrolling, there isn’t much time for anything else. So I appreciate that finding time is not always easy and even when you get that narrow window of opportunity, sometimes it’s hard to get your creative juices flowing on demand.

Peoples brains work at different times in the day. I found this out whenever I’d make contact with my publisher, who was very much the night owl to my early bird. Where I’m an in-bed-by-21:45-and-asleep-with-a book-on-my-hands-by-22:00 gal, I’d often wake up to voice notes from him that were sent at 04:00. The horror of being awake at that time still disturbs me, but each to their own and I'm sure he knew what worked well for him. And when I would reply at 0630, I knew I wouldn’t get a reply by the afternoon. It sounds like a passing ships in the night scenario, but it worked pretty well because it allowed me to concentrate on my day job.

I’ll tell you this for free, I wouldn’t, couldn’t reel off a block of pros late evening and expect it to be of any quality. So I came up with a solution to set my alarm 10 minutes earlier than planned to get up and just put pen to paper and start writing. I realised it didn’t need have to relate to the project I was working on at the time, but what it did was give me that creative headspace before the busy day ahead.

So in essence, this shouldn’t be a blog about finding the time, it should be finding your time to write. Do what works for you, as long as it’s an very day thing and then you’ll find what I did; you create a pattern and then it doesn’t so much become a question of ‘if’ I can do it when the random window of opportunity arises.