I Have Ideas But Not Enough Time to Write a Novel

Q: Hi Preston L. Allen. May I call you Preston? Many years ago I was in an MFA program but left it after a year to get married and start a family. I have since published several short stories in literary magazines and have a pretty good idea for a novel, but with the time constraints on my life due to full time employment and raising two children I find it impossible timewise to complete such a lengthy prose work. After two years of working on the book, I have a completed outline and a mere thirty pages of prose. I read your blog on "getting up early in the morning and working on the book every day." That does not work for me. I teach high school English and am too tired to get up so early. I need more time. Writing takes time. Where can I find more time?

Thanks, J.O.

A: At the rate you are going, in twenty years you will be on page 300 and the book will be completed. And it will probably be a great book because of all of the time you spent working and thinking about it. It will be your masterpiece. Your Magnum Opus. A book like that is worth waiting twenty years for.

On the other hand, you should clean out your emails if you want motivation to write your novel.

What?

Clean out your emails.

This week my English Department email account started bouncing back emails. The account was over full. I was way beyond the limit. I had over 3000 emails that needed to be deleted.

SO I began to delete old emails, but since some of them were important things that I needed to keep for a variety of personal and work related reasons--I opened a WORD file and began cutting and pasting the old emails into it.

I only went back a year and a half, which was enough to free up space so that I could use the system again.

A year and a half . . .

I only went back a year and a half--and I filled a WORD file that is 390 pages long, a page count that is longer than any novel I have ever published.

In other words, I wrote, in one year and a half, at least enough email prose to fill a good sized novel . . .

How much email prose have you written?

How much Myspace prose?

How much Facebook?

How Much Text Message?

How Much Twitter?

Maybe you aren't the kind of writer to rise at 5 a.m. But are you the kind who will email yourself, each day, a few paragraphs from your novel in progress?

The key is to steal some writing time from time that you ALREADY spend writing.

Your new novel will be ready in a year and a half.

I hope this helps, J.O.

Thanks,

Preston