To be a writer, you have to write… this was a conclusion I came to a few years ago, which still holds true. To borrow some advice from one more qualified to talk about successful writing than I…

This then is the crux of the matter. You can say you want to be a writer, dream of being a writer, you can even have the word ‘Writer‘ printed in your passport, but that is all for nothing unless you actually do some writing…

The problem, as is often the case, is there are some many other things to do rather than write, which is at best a solitary activity you undertake in your writing cave. There are movies to watch, TV series to absorb, books to read (because if you don’t read a lot you will never be a writer), a social life to have, work of the paying kind to do, social media, video games, watching a bunch of grown men run around a field chasing a leather ball, walking in the sunshine, spending time with friends, with family, life in general. There is in essence a lot to do and only so many hours in the day.

How then do you find time to write?

How indeed…

Well the simple answer is you make time. When, well that is down to you. It could be a setting aside couple of hours on an evening or getting up a couple of hours earlier on a morning to get some words down, or you could use your lunch hour at the daily grind. The when is not really important, it juts has to be your when. It is the doing that matters. Making yourself do what you need to do in order to write. Making a pact with yourself to do so.

This at least is what works for me.

I go through phases, some times I write with near religious further. The words flow because I need to write them and my need to write them out weighs all other concerns. Other times I have to force myself to write as much as a sentence. On occasion I don’t write at all, then I feel guilty for not doing so and eventually the guilt out weighs the apathy and I make myself write again.

When I am mid novel, and have a self imposed deadline no matter how vague, I make myself write a thousand words a day. Why a thousand, well its a nice round number, it is also about three pages in a standard typeset for a trade paperback, but mainly because that thousand words is long enough that it takes a couple of hours but short enough that it only takes a couple of hours. So when the words are not flowing I can still push myself to write for that length of time, if I don’t hit the word count it doesn’t matter, the time at the coal face is what matters, and if you return to the coal face every day the words will start to flow.

When I am working on a third draft the time spent is more important still. The first draft and the second to an extent tend to involve a lot of solid writing. Blocks of text it is easy to count and measure. A third draft and every draft after that, if I am still counting them, is polishing. the process of turning a perfectly acceptable sentence into something more. The difference between a perfect readable but prosaic story and, if one may be pretentious, art.

Third drafts are where the blood stains the page, where the soul is rendered in ink. Third drafts can take a moment to change one word among several paragraphs or hours to change three words in a sentence, that you will change again the following day. And again, and again until you are happy with it, which will never happen but by the old gods and the new you will try….

Third drafts therefore can only be measure in time, not words written. This is why setting aside time to write matters, and getting into the habit of doing so matters. Over the years I have developed ways to do this. I take time away from writing, though I still write things when I do, but when I am working on a book I actively set aside time and make myself do the work.

Of course, when the writing flows and the blood seeps into pages painlessly, the couple of hours I set aside often run over, and I get lost in the work , which isn’t really work then. But if I don’t force myself to make those couple of hours each day to start with the tap is never turned on.

To be a writer you have to write, it really is as simple and as complicated as that.

Just to note. writing blog posts like one is also writing. Regular readers may have noticed these tend to become more frequent when I am not actively writing a novel. This is entirely deliberate…