Join Laurie Halse Anderson and Write Fifteen Minutes A Day (WFMAD) in the month of August!

I’m an independent editor as well as a writer and screenwriter, a partner, a daughter, a friend, a neighbor… and I know from my own experience how hard it can be to find time to write. But here’s the thing: writers write. We need to find strategies to make room for writing in our lives.

Writing does not have to be a precious and sacred ritual. It can be a daily task, like washing the dishes (there are times when washing the dishes is more fun — that’s life). The point is, that sometimes we get ourselves believing that we don’t have “enough time” to write; and the result is that we spend no time at all, for weeks or months or years, in writing. No one ever finishes a book by not writing. No one ever learns to be a better writer by sitting around thinking about it. Never.

You do not have to write thousands of words a day to be a writer. You do not have to write a book a year. You do have to write; you have to finish things; you have to get feedback; you have to revise; and you have to keep learning how to write better. These things make you a writer. (Being published makes you an author).

I’ve been very busy lately: I have a full editing and coaching schedule, a screenplay in development, and I’m the board chair of the Clarion West Writers Workshop (CW). It’s not necessarily the best time for me to take on a new project. But recently, CW held one of our most important fundraisers, the Write-a-thon, six weeks in which writers sign up for a writing goal and solicit supporting donations to CW. Like a walk-a-thon or bike-a-thon with writing goals instead of miles. And so I signed up to write 12,000 words of a new YA novel.

And I set aside 30 minutes a day to work on this project. That’s all I could give myself. I got a timer, I turned off the internet, and I wrote.

In 30 minutes a day (with a little extra time here and there), I made my 12,000 word goal in six weeks. And I expect that in 15 minutes a day, I can do at least half as well. A thousand words a week is nearly a YA novel first draft in a year. If that feels like a long time to you — if you’re impatient to be done, done, done — then I suggest you consider the alternative, which is waiting for the perfect time to write; because what if that golden time never comes? WFMAD is a great chance to help train your writing brain to understand that you don’t necessarily need two hours, absolute silence, the right software or a character bible to do your work. Of course it’s better to have more time and to have a supportive environment to write. But what if you don’t? Will you throw up your hands and curse, or will you write anyway?

Take 15 minutes a day in August with Laurie Halse Anderson, with me, and with lots of other people. Let’s all be writers.

Posted by: Kelley