How do you find the time to write?

Put another way, what is and what isn't "writing time?"

The first thing any politician learns is to answer the question they want to answer, not the one they’re being asked. The question in the title implies that all that’s needed to find more time is to squeeze all the other things you care about into the back of the cupboard to make room. But which writer hasn’t stared at a blank page with a ticking clock and felt entirely helpless? Or sat down to write but found themselves researching minutiae about falconry instead?

So, I’ll answer a different, related question: What is and what isn’t writing time?

Inspiration time

NOT writing time

When I’m feeling blocked or tired, I don’t force myself to write. I travel, I surf, I spend time with friends and family and don’t even think about writing. A writer who only lives in their own imaginary worlds grows disconnected from the very things that inspired them to create. I trust that life will inspire me, and it always does. For instance, I was out with friends at the London light festival and saw this:

It’s a bird in flight, but it looks like the skeleton of a large sea animal and sounds like a freight train. The mechanization of something so organic is fascinating, revealing the need for the human mind to dissect, decompose, to understand in order to experience. Even more absurd is the blue-lit second floor of the building in the background: a massive game venue that made the experience of a reality show available to the public. Did I get multiple story ideas that night? Absolutely. Does that count as writing time? No.

Research time

NOT writing time

Ah, world-building. Even if you aren’t writing sci-fi or fantasy, you can end up on the most obscure, wonderful quests. While writing Her Golden Coast, I ended up researching everything from the exact years and dates when the first iPhone came to market to the details of what actually happened to the Occupy movement and why. And this was all stuff I’d already lived through. These days, while writing the fantasy series, I’ve been researching the Devadasi (temple-prostitute) tradition, obscure Sanskrit etymology, and the temple of the goddess of desire where the womb and genitalia of Sati are said to have been thrown from the heavens.

It’s fascinating, but it’s not writing time.

Reading time

NOT writing time

I’m trying to read at least 100 books for every book I write. I don’t have to finish them all, but in a world where everyone is shouting to get heard, I want to at least try to listen. Moreover, I wouldn’t even be a writer if I didn’t love reading so much. Books from the last month that I read and recommend:

• Dawn: Lilith’s Brood by Octavia Butler for grounding in SFF from a master of the genre.

• The Final Party by A. A. Chaudhuri. I learn so much from thrillers on pacing and suspense, and there are so few women of color writing in the genre that I want to support them.

• H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald, ostensibly on the art of falconry, but really on the grief of losing a parent and recovering yourself.

Learning time

NOT writing time

There’s a deal out right now from BBC Maestro for unlimited classes for £72 / year. This is much, much cheaper than my previous MasterClass subscription. I listen to authors teach craft while I do chores or cook. Right now I’m listening to the videos from Lee Child, one of which has the fantastic title: “Plot is a rental car.” In it, he says, “If I were going to Barbados on a date with a supermodel, when I got back, nobody is going to ask me about the rental car I drove.” Plot is the vehicle of the story, but it is not the story.

Now, this is obviously not writing time, but it’s tempting to call it Craft Time. It’s not. Let’s get into what that is.

Craft time

NOT writing time

Once, I went to a bookstore and spent an hour just reading the back cover blurbs of various books I’d read and loved. They got repetitive after a while, but it was helpful to uncover what those underlying elements are that must come across in the description of the book. It was also interesting to see what the blurb highlighted about the story (which was often different from what I thought the story was about). I do a lot of craft exercises like this. This last week, I read the first chapter of every Thomas Harris book, to see how much he explains to the reader versus how much he just drops the reader into the action.

Here is another craft exercise I enjoy and am doing right now for my novel: highlighting in a paragraph of text (my own or someone else’s) what are the lines that bear the tension of the piece, that propel you forward, and what are the lines that slow down the pace and hold it back. Based on the things I learned from First you write a sentence (Learning time, above), I am also doing something my editor Caroline Manring taught me, which is to make each word audition for its place in the sentence.

It’s tempting to call this writing time, but it’s not. Especially since I often do this when reading other people’s work. Which takes me to…

Community Time

NOT writing time

Whether you’re traditionally published or self-published, the most important thing for a book’s success is the community that comes out to support it. And nobody actually comes out to support the book; they come out to support you, the author, because of how you make them feel. Which means, rather obviously, that you’ve got to spend time blurbing other new writers, buying their books, and supporting them in their journey. For my second novel, Her Golden Coast, Times-bestselling thriller author Kia Abdullah came out in absolute, full-throated support, lending her privilege to make the launch successful. She’s now going to be part of Dorothy Koomson’s Thrillfest, a panel of women crime-writers, and you bet I’ll be there!

Marketing time

NOT writing time

If all the other things above are fun ways to pretend you’re writing when you really aren’t, this one is a no-fun thing that demands your time and money when you’d much rather be writing. Even when you’re traditionally published, unless you’re among the headline books of your imprint, there is limited budget for marketing and publicity. This is something I wish I’d known a long time ago. Even traditionally published authors need to do their own marketing (e.g. ads) and publicity (e.g. pitching stories to magazines like Writers Digest).

We’re getting closer to actual writing time, especially when the thing you do for marketing is write articles you’ve pitched, but… nope, not actually writing time.

Logistics time

NOT writing time

A fair amount of my time goes into working with illustrators, cover designers, editors and proofreaders, setting up my accounts (e.g. Amazon Author Central, GoodReads, etc.) and licenses (Scrivener, Canva) and finances in just the way I need them.

Necessary, but not writing time.

Meta-writing time

MAYBE writing time

Whether you’ve always been a plotter, or you’re a pantser trying to write a synopsis of your story, there’s a lot of time that goes into zhuzhing up what you’ve already written, writing pitches and synopses, or experimenting with shifting scenes and perspectives. Maybe this is also how you edit. Who knows? In my case, this is time I’ve spent in Scrivener that doesn’t really end up changing the word count on my actual manuscript.

Writing time

YES, writing time!

The word count goes up over time. That’s it. It doesn’t have to go up every day, and it doesn’t have to go up by a lot, but, like a stock ticker, it has to keep going up. If it does, you’re finding time to write. Congratulations!