Check out Part One of “How Do You Find Time To Write?” here!
1. Eliminate a hobby
First things first. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a good hobby.
God desires for us to explore and discover His world, and it brings Him pleasure when we actively use our hands and mind to pursue new endeavors. After all, a good and intentional hobby can flourish into useful skills for furthering The Kingdom.
Your writing may have even started out as (or perhaps currently is!) a mild pursuit which is developing into something more.
Here is the danger. We dwell in an age where hobbies nudge fearfully close to “needs” rather than wants, and the thought of eliminating one or more can be somewhat disheartening; however, for your writing to swell and thrive beyond the confines of a hobby, some other endeavor might need to go by the wayside, at least for a time.
This is my challenge for you: if writing is the passion and drive God has fueled in the depths of your soul, will you one day be happy that you planted another flower, played another video game, lifted another weight, ran another mile? Or do you have a sneaking suspicion you will have wished you had written more?
2. Cut Out Fillers
What’s the first thing you do when:
- You roll your cart up to the check-out line?
- Sit down to wait at the doctor’s office?
- Stand in-line to purchase a movie ticket?
During these short moments, do you automatically reach towards your phone with the intention of checking social media or stumbling upon another article on the top 10 ways to grow a garden in your kitchen sink? Yeah, I’m guilty of it too! Blessed are those who have not smartphones, for theirs shall be time to write.
Maybe that’s a little extreme, but you get the point!
Many of us have conditioned ourselves to stuff every little moment with fillers—fillers being anything we reactively do when we have a moment to, well, fill.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve whined, “There’s just no time to write“, whilst simultaneously pulling up social media.
Challenge time: the next moment your hand wanders to that little device in your pocket, do an about-face and consider your work-in-progress. What areas need fleshing out? Are there any unclear parts? New insights? Fascinating anecdotes? New character reflections?
Now, pull out the pen & paper out of your pocket that you’ve kept there for such a time as this, and start writing!
3. Write when everyone else is busy
Silence. The calm between life’s busyness. A moment to take a deep breath.
For many of us, it’s a rare, exotic thing to have a few moments alone, and whether we realize it or not, each of us gravitates to certain activities in these moments: reading, cleaning, eating, Netflix, napping. Even wandering or worrying.
At this point, I have an inkling you know what’s-a-coming:
When you’re by yourself, choose to fill that time with writing!
It doesn’t matter if the time alone is sporadic or scheduled. My wife used to take a two-hour class every Monday evening, and that became scheduled writing time –an intentional block to kick off the writing week.
Conversely, on our travels home last night, we came to the stunning conclusion we were out of baby oatmeal. After squealing into the parking lot, I drew the lot to wait in the car and care for the sleeping tyke while my wife dashed into the grocery store to grab the impromptu vittles. Behold! There were another few minutes I wasn’t expecting, but that I used for a little writing.
4. Stick to your schedule
By now, you’ve hopefully started to uncover one or two snatches of time to plant your writing and let it grow. Now is the hard part: keeping your new-found writing times alive and kicking.
How many of us have simmered into a comfy chair, extracted our notebooks from the bowels of the desk drawer, flexed those writing tools…then unintentionally embarked on a journey like this?
“Who vomited this mess all over the desk? Crumbs and paper scraps everywhere! The gall…better get that thing cleaned up or the creative-mites will have nowhere to work. Ok, ready. Now, just one more inspirational YouTube video on the proper placement of semicolons. Ahh, you know, that punctuation bit baffled my brain, but I’ve got the fix! Answering emails to the rescue again! Buuuut now I’m hungry—are there any new snacks in the fridge? Ahh, that grilled cheese was delectable. As was the soup. Oh no! Is the stove off?”
Before you know it, precious writing time will vanish with only a taunting cursor remaining. One successful writer says:
Satan loves to use the normal interruptions of daily life to delay and hinder Christians from doing something of importance to the Kingdom of God.” – Bodie Thoene, Writer to Writer
“But, but,” you ask, “Is cleaning bad? Is watching videos on craft unbeneficial? Is eating a sin?!”
By no means, of course!
Here’s the kicker: things that are typically good and normal may become the enemy of the best. I’m definitely not advocating starving, neglecting learning the particulars of your craft, or keeping your space an unwieldy mess! Instead, ask yourself if you are wisely using the moments God graciously provides. As our Lord says,
“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:16-17)
When it’s time to write, stick to that time! The distractions that are mildly important will still be there when you’re done, and I promise you won’t miss the plethora of ones that really didn’t matter in the first place.
5. Break the Schedule
The danger is real.
Once you’ve scraped together a few times a day (or week) to write, those moments become precious. Woe to the one who invades the hard-won landscapes of pen and page! That territory is ours and ours alone. Right?
Perhaps not…
I promise, despite your best efforts, there will be times when legitimate life circumstances will intervene and displace even your most finely plotted writing plans.
When that happens, will we whine, cringe, and cling to “our” time with a death grip, or will we offer back the time to the One (the only One) who gave us the ability in the first place? An author you might have heard of wisely said,
“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’, or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life – the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination.” – C.S. Lewis, Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C.S. Lewis
While it’s impossible to know what each moment will bring, it’s important—as much as possible (and it won’t always be)—to proactively determine what the good and acceptable reasons to break your writing plans are (family moments, emergencies, misunderstandings, etc.), so when your schedule starts to shake, the process of figuring out what to do isn’t guided by selfish desires or emotional flailing.
“That’s nice and all,” you say, “but what does this have to do with finding time to write?”
Glad you asked!
In the end, your schedule is merely a plan; it is not action. When you discern that God has other plans for your time, don’t be afraid to joyfully break them and re-arrange your schedule. For people like me who aren’t the fondest of change, this can be difficult, but it’s one of many ways God nudges us to trust Him more. The question I’ve learned to ask: Am I choosing to make the best of the time God has given me, especially when it’s hard? As a certain wizard famously says,
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us… – Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring
, New Line Cinema
All the ways listed in these two posts require sacrifices, especially initially as you wander through early writing steps and seek methods that work for you, but if you keep at it when it’s hard and seemingly fruitless, it will be all the more worthwhile in the long run.
If writing is the direction God is leading you, I promise it will be a rewarding pursuit. And an active pursuit it must be.
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