How Do I Find Time to Write?

 

By Linda S. Glaz

I’m often asked how I make time to write being an agent and working with other folks’ material all day long? I’m glad you asked. For starters, ideas rise like yeast in my head every second of every day. No unleavened concepts here. And eventually, I simply have to give in and offer over my time or my head will burst. But how? I work fifty hours or so a week already. Some weeks, more. With only twenty-four hours in the day, how is it possible to squeeze in the time to write?

 

Okay, it’s the Glaz method. Just mine. Just for me. Not for anyone else. We all have to find our own way to productivity.

 

Let’s start: I take a weekend with not much else happening (rare, but they do occur). I sit down (first step is always the hardest) and start writing an overall summary of the story. A good deal gets mapped out during this high-intensity weekend. During that next week, I take an hour or two in the evening to write after I finish my clients’ work. Then, the following weekend I dig in and finish. Mind you, I’m only doing about 25-35K words, mostly a LONG summary of the story. There isn’t much emotion, dialogue, description, or the like. Simply TELL the story and be done. So it is bare bones and not very exciting with little more than poor, poor, poor writing skills.

 

After that long, drawn-out week and whenever I find a few minutes here and there, I begin to add in dialogue, strong settings, good description (only what is necessary … BTW, I’m not big on description for the sake of description), and real emotions. This is going to take me a couple more months in my spare time.

 

Following a couple months of cursory edits, it goes out to a reader. I employ a couple readers during the pathetic sketching phase, but only those who won’t ever tell. LOL. Once there’s feedback, I can seriously begin the cleaning up process. This takes another couple months, depending on the length of the project.

 

Let’s recap:

 

• A TELLING of the story which entails a bare summary start to finish
• Add in smart dialogue, strong setting, deep emotions
• One solid read-through to catch inconsistencies and typos
• Out to a trusted reader
• Strong edit; don’t miss a thing while reading out loud to myself
• Off to crit partners or additional readers for feedback
• Final edit

This is what works for ME. Not necessarily for you or your critique partners or anyone else. I learned along the way that I had to find a way to complete a project in a short time or it would never be finished, and that has helped me to get a final project in hand. My earlier writing? Well … let’s say I have over twenty partials in a file that will no doubt stay there forever. I had to learn how easily distracted I am, and get the initial story done. Hence, the one week very long summary. Editing and adding is easy if only I can finish something beginning to end.

 

We each develop our own process, our own method of getting a much beloved story idea into the hands of readers. We can’t write like our friends do. We have to find a way to make the process work for us.

 

I loved Lori Hatcher’s coffee comment. I could NOT do this without my breast cancer mug which starts each morning loaded with coffee and carries me through the bulk of my work day. Nor could I work without my morning walk and short breaks during the course of the day. Again, these make the process deliver for me.

 

Find your sweet spot. What keeps you writing? What distracts you? Discipline is key to starting and finishing a project.

 

One last thing: perseverance. Without it, you’ll never realize your goals. 

What works best for you? We would love to hear your ideas.

 

 Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

 Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

Linda S. Glaz, married with three grown children and four grandchildren, is a complete triple-A personality. How else would she find time to write as well as be an agent for Hartline Literary Agency? She loves any and everything about the written word and loves when families pass stories along through the generations as her mother did with her. Linda is a speaker, presenter, and searches her emails each day to find that one nugget of gold. Writing so stellar from a teachable spirit. What more could she ask for?