How to Write a Non-Fiction Proposal

Ha ha!! It's not really that bad, I promise ;-D

Quote of the Day:

A book proposal is to publishing what the resume is to the job search...At its best, the proposal can function as a sophisticated sales brochure...The more impressive it is...the higher your advance is likely to be. That alone should be incentive enough for you to create the very best proposal you can...The proposal process must be taken seriously; it's the price of admission to being a published author.
~Jeff Herman, in the introduction to Write the Perfect Proposal: 10 Proposals that Sold and Why

I have had non-fiction book ideas for years, but one of the things that always stopped me from pursuing those ideas was the fact that I had to write a proposal in order to sell my idea. The non-fiction proposal scared me, intimidated me, had me cowering in the corner with my hands over my eyes.

I’d seen a few…they were huge! Like sixty-some pages long (with the sample chapters). They include sections on markets and platforms and competition and a bunch of other stuff that I had no clue how to even begin to write. I Googled a lot, but all the posts I had seen on writing these monstrosities confused me to no end. Even the ones that had clearly defined lists of the information I needed to include. I knew what I needed to do, theoretically, but actually putting that into action threw me into a vortex of confusion, despair, and terror.

So, I convinced myself I’d never be able to write a decent proposal. I occasionally worked on material for a non-fiction book that I knew would never see the light of day, but I let the idea of the proposal keep me from going after something I am really pretty good at doing.

And then a friend of mine, Carolyn, and I were talking one day. She is a soon-to-be published non-fiction author (who also writes fiction), and she encouraged me to quit letting the proposal beat me down and go for it. She recommended an awesome book, Jeff Herman’s Write the Perfect Proposal: 10 Proposals That Sold and Why, and sent me her own proposal as an example.

I was still scared to death and fairly sure I’d never make it out alive, but I looked over her proposal, read through the book many times, taking notes along the way, and finally sat down to draft my own proposal. It wasn’t easy; it is a ton of work…hard work. But, once I got into it, I realized that it wasn’t as scary as I had thought. It was doable. You just have to take it slowly, one section at a time.

While the Overview should be first, the rest of these sections can be moved around a bit. If you have an awesome platform, you could put the About the Author section first, etc. I've just listed them in the order I had them in my proposal.

Section One: Overview

This is your hook. In this section, you briefly describe what your book is about. Make it good, interesting, catchy. It shouldn’t be too long (the overviews I have seen were mostly less than two pages, in some cases only a couple paragraphs. Mine was about two and a half pages, double-spaced).

Ask yourself these questions:

What is my book about?
What makes it different from the other books out there? (be brief, you can go into more detail on this in the section on competition)
Why does the world need my book?
Who will read it? (you don’t need to go into detail here, save that for the market section – but in general, who will the audience be).

In my case, my book is a handbook for writing essays, papers, and poetry. Well, there are a lot of books out there that do this. So, I was sure to mention why my book was different.

My first paragraph introduced the issue at hand…writing assignments such as these can be difficult. If I could have found them, I probably would have listed a statistic or two on how many students fail their Language Arts classes. Good, solid facts and statistics are a nice addition, but not totally necessary.

This also depends on your book, though. Carolyn’s upcoming book is a guide to help writers include realistic information on psychology in their work. She had several sources that cited good percentages, statistics, and quotations describing how often this type of information is used in books, film, and television and how often it is inaccurate. In her proposal, the statistics worked well. In mine, everyone knows that there are a lot of students in our country and a lot of them need help in English class…statistics aren’t really necessary to help prove that.

My second paragraph went into further detail…I mentioned that in my experience, people who are already confused become more so when confronted with guidebooks that are so technically written they do nothing more than make a bad situation worse.

My third paragraph described why my book solved this problem by describing what my book is about and going into a little detail about the tone and format of my book. And then I added in a bulleted list illustrating exactly why my book is the perfect writing guide and what a reader will get out of it. Remember, be confident! An agent or editor won’t have confidence in your work if you don’t! And remember, keep it brief. You can expound on most of this stuff in later sections.

One of the reasons my overview was a bit longer than normal was because I also included a few quotations from educators and school psychologists who had read my sample chapters and gave me their endorsement. These could have been included in another section in the proposal (in fact, my agent is having me include an entire endorsement section in my proposal for when we submit it to publishers), but for the initial querying to agents, I included them right up front in the overview.

Section Two: Market

Here is where you go into detail about your audience. This is one of the sections that intimidated me the most, but ended up being one of the easiest to write. Maybe it is the title…MARKET…it just sounds scary :D But really, all you are doing here is listing who would be interested in reading your book. And you already know this because you probably had an audience in mind when you wrote the book. Brainstorm every possible market for your book, then list them in order of importance or size.

For my book, my main, or primary, market is educational. The largest audience for my book will be students, from junior high through college. I added some statistics here about how many learning disabled students there are in the United States because this is not common knowledge and my book will be very helpful for the learning disabled.

My secondary market is another division of educational – homeschooling parents. There are a lot of parents who homeschool their children (I added a statistic here to show exactly how many), and these parents need books to educate their children.

I also listed a possible third market – it’s more of a long shot, but it is a possibility, so I put it in there. This would be writers. Freelance bloggers, writers, etc could find my book useful if they wanted to make sure the articles they were writing were technically sound, or beginning poets could use it to get all the rules right.

I added statistics here to show how many freelance writers there are in the United States, how that job group has grown in the last few years and mentioned the projected growth.

Section Three: Competition

There will almost always be competition for your book and there is no point trying to pretend otherwise. Editors and agents are fully aware there are other books out there that will be competing with yours, so you might as well do your homework.

This section is where you can help illustrate why your book is different from those already on the shelves. I started my section by saying, “Though there are many handbooks and textbooks available that teach essay, paper, and poetry writing skills, many prove inadequate to the task.” I briefly described why and listed a few books in the same category as my book and pointed out why mine was better.

For example, you could say, “This title by so and so is good in that it does this or that. However, it does not do this, this, and this. My book does.”

I did this for a couple titles and then just made a list of several titles (there are a lot in my category, so I just picked a few). List the title, the author, the publisher, the year published, and the current selling price for each competitive title.

Section Four: About the Author

This is where you talk yourself up, toot your own horn, list everything and anything that illustrates how wonderful you are and why you are the best person to write your book. This is where you talk about your platform, how you can help sell your book. Do you have degrees, personal experience, professional experience? Do you give workshops, speeches, or classes on your subject? Have you been previously published? If so, list your books, their publication date, and your publisher, along with any other pertinent information like if your books were bestsellers or won any awards. Do you have access to radio shows, blogs, websites, conferences, etc, where you can promote your book? Are you related to the President of the United States, sister of Bill Gates, best friends with Brad Pitt or someone else that will be able to help you get this book out in the world?

This was another section that intimidated me, because my platform is pretty weak. I have the degrees and the personal experience necessary to make me an expert on my subject. But I don’t have the professional experience. I am not a teacher, I don’t speak at conferences or conventions, I have not been previously published (well, in a few Chicken Soup for the Soul books, but not in anything that would help me out in this arena).

But that is okay. Yes, it helps tremendously if you have a strong platform. To give you the honest truth, a lot of agents or editors may reject you if your platform isn’t strong enough. They like to publish books when the author has a guaranteed way of making a lot of sales. That is why celebrities can publish whatever kind of crap they want – because they have a built-in audience guaranteed to buy the book.

Definitely do what you can to build your platform before and after you write your book – but if you don’t have a large platform, don’t let it stop you. There are things you can do to help with that. And if you have an awesome book, it will sell itself.

Despite my weak platform, I knew I had a great book idea, I knew I could pull it off, and I knew if someone would just read what I had written, they’d love it. And I was right, they did. But, because my platform is so weak, I am finishing my manuscript before submitting to publishers and am including that endorsement section in my proposal (quotes from people who DO have the right background who are willing to stand behind my book), where with someone with a solid platform might be able to submit their book right away.

In any case, this is the section to say whatever wonderful things about yourself that you can – most importantly, things that will help illustrate why you are the right person to be writing your book.

Section Five: Promotion

This is where you list everything that you can do to help promote your book. Don’t list anything here unless you are sure you can do it. You can list things like:

Websites or blogs (yours or others) that will promote your book
Other avenues where you can promote it yourself such as radio shows, television shows, conferences you often speak at…if you are teacher who can pick your own textbooks and you can use your book in your class, you can mention that here
If you can create media kits, flyers, newsletters, etc or have other ways of advertising your book, list them here
If you are independently wealthy or have a grant or some other type of funding to help advertise your book, list it

Basically, this section is where you want to illustrate everything and anything you can do to advertise and promote your book.

Section Six: Chapter Outline and Synopsis

Now, I’ve seen this done a few different ways. Some people will list their Table of Contents in the Overview, or include a highly annotated Table of Contents in lieu of an outline or synopsis. Many I saw (and this is what I did) listed the Table of Contents (marking which chapters were included in the proposal as sample chapters) and then went through the chapters of the book, giving a brief overview or synopsis of each chapter.

My book has twenty-five chapters, so I was a bit hesitant to do this, but it didn’t end up being a huge production. You don’t have to go into great detail. Just briefly describe what each chapter will include. Each of my chapters includes a How To section and examples, so I stated that at the beginning of the section, and then in the chapter abstracts, I just wrote a paragraph or two on my chapters.

For example, as my book is a handbook for writing assignments, the chapters are broken down by the different types of essays and poetic forms that are out there. Chapter Four is on Critical Essays, Chapter Sixteen on Ballads, and so on. So for each chapter, I wrote a paragraph or two describing what Critical essays or ballads are (basically what I put for my intro of each chapter in the actual book), and left it at that, since I had already pointed out that each chapter would have its own How To section and specific examples.

For your own proposals, just briefly describe the content of your chapters.

Section Seven: Sample Chapters

Here is where you will include two or three of the actual chapters of your book. Now, you do not have to have the book finished in order to get signed by an agent or sell your book to a publisher. That is the fun with non-fiction books. You can sell them based on an idea.

However, you do have to have at least a couple chapters (two is the norm) so the agent or editor can get an idea of what your book will look like when it is finished.

When you are finished with your proposal, I highly suggest having at least one person look it over for basic proofreading and to see if it hooks them. A proposal is like a huge, blown-up query…you still need to hook that agent or editor into wanting your book. Even more so, because there usually isn’t a finished manuscript for them to request. They sign you or buy your book based solely (most of the time) on your proposal. But don’t let that scare you! Present your book (and yourself) in the best way you can, polish up those sample chapters, and send it out :)

And that’s it! Yes, it’s a LOT of work, and there is a lot of research involved, especially if you choose to include statistics or quotations in addition to your competition titles. And I highly recommend looking at Jeff Herman's book (or any other book you can find on writing proposals, but I like his especially because he includes annotated proposals as examples). Several agent's websites and blogs have posts on this topic and if you can get a hold of some example proposals to look at, that is always a good idea. I'm a very visual person, so looking at a finished product helps me understand how to get there myself :)

If you take it slowly, one section at a time, it really isn’t nearly as intimidating. Most of these sections are no more than a page long, some less than that. I think my largest section was two pages long…until you get to the Outline, Chapter Abstracts, and Sample Chapters of course :)

So just focus on the small chunks, complete it with a title page and Proposal Table of Contents, and before you know it, you’ll have a finished proposal ready to ship out to agents and editors :D Good luck!!

Hook Me...or Else!

Quotes of the Day:

My test of a good novel is dreading to begin the last chapter.
~Thomas Helm

You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.
~Paul Sweeney

How long do you give a book to hook you before you give up on it?

This is something I've been thinking about recently, as I delve into editing my first few chapters. I know as aspiring authors, we are sort of conditioned to try and hook our readers (i.e. agents/editors) within the first three chapters...or better yet, the first chapter...or better still, the first page. Because we know when we query, we only have a few minutes of a very busy agent's time to hook them into asking for more of our book.

But when you are reading on your own, just for fun...how long will you read before laying the book aside? 1 chapter? 3 chapters?

I just started reading A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray...for the third time. I've picked it up twice before, and despite the facts that the passages were wonderful, there were exciting, strange, and mysterious things happening, and it is right up my alley as a historical...I just couldn't get into it.

This time around, I am finally hooked - I'm reading and thinking about it when I can't read, and wondering what happens next. And I'm 80 pages in. It took that long for me to get well and truly into the book.

There are several books that I've done this with, that I didn't really get hooked by until around page 80-100 (Twilight being one of them - bored me to tears for the first few chapters), and sometimes these books go on to be favorites of mine. Twilight, the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon (probably my all time favorite series, but the first chapter bored me a bit). Anne Rice's books are notorious for this, with me at least. The first several chapters are beyond boring, and then I get really hooked.

Most of the time, I stick with these books as long as I do because I've had so many people tell me how much they love them. So I continue slogging through either hoping I'll eventually see in them what others have, or wondering what it is that others love so much and assume if I keep reading I'll figure it out. With Anne Rice, I stick with them because I know if I can just make it to chapter 3, I'll be loving it (except for one of hers....I gave it about 100 pages and then just gave up).

Without that word-of-mouth incentive, or a prior good experience with the author, I doubt I would have given any of those books a second look...I would have gotten bored and put them down, never to touch them again. But I still try to give books 100 pages to catch my attention - mostly because that seems to be my magic mark, the point at which you've either got me or you don't.

So how about you? How long will you give a book to hook you?

Friday Funnies

Quote of the Day:

A story can be wrecked by a faulty rhythm in a sentence - especially if it occurs toward the end - or a mistake in paragraphing, even punctuation. ~Truman Capote

Punctuation Parable

Dear John,

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior.
You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy - will you let me be yours?

Gloria

Dear John,

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior.
You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?

Yours,

Gloria



Ode to the Spell Check

Eye halve a spelling chequer

It cam with my pea sea

It plainly marques four my revue

Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word

And weight four it two say

Weather eye am wrong oar write

It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid

It nose bee fore two long

And eye can put the error rite

Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it

I am shore your pleased two no

Its letter perfect awl the weigh

My chequer tolled me sew!

It's Me or Them...Or Maybe Both

Quote of the Day:

Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow - whether there is a market for it or not! The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don't show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward.
~Kurt Vonnegut

I know I've probably done posts on this before...it's something my friends and I discuss frequently - especially when those rejections are rolling in and we start questioning why, oh why, do we torture ourselves in this hard and sometimes cruel industry.

We've all said that we write because we love it, because we have to, to calm the voices in our heads. All of my friends have said that they'll never give up writing (despite moments of weakness), even if they should never be published, because it's something they love too much, something they just have to do, and no amount of rejection is going to change that.

And I feel the same way. I was lucky enough to get an agent for my non-fiction. And I'm thrilled. But I am fully aware the same thing may not happen for my fiction. And while I enjoy writing non-fiction, it is the fiction I truly love. It's those fantasy worlds and situations that my head swims in all day, those make-believe stories that I can't get out of my head....that multiply so quickly that for every one story I get out, ten more ideas replace it.

I am very well aware of the odds stacked against me...I queried my first novel for two years before shelving it....getting so close so many times....but never once (again, aside from my few moments of sheer despairing insanity) did I consider giving up writing. I've been doing it in some form or another my whole life. And, whether my work ever ends up on a store's bookshelf or not, I'll continue to do it until my fingers can no longer type and my voice can no longer dictate. I'm seriously holding out hope that some incredible genius will invent a device that I can hook up to my head that will just record everything going on in there and spit out a fully written novel in a matter of minutes :D Oooo good story idea ;-D

Which is why, when I came across the above quote I thought, "YES!! EXACTLY!!" Who cares if there is a market for my work? There is nothing like the feeling of getting totally sucked into a story...of seeing the images in my head recreated on paper...of getting the emails and phone calls from my "fans" (thanks mom and sis!) begging me for more chapters...of seeing something that was once only a dream (often literally) sitting in front of me in a big, beautiful stack on my desk...that rush you feel when you type The End...it's incredible - even if no one will ever see it but me...the things I can create when I pick up that pen or lay my fingers on the keyboard are reward enough. They can put a smile on my face years after I write them, even if I'm the only one who has ever laid eyes on them.

And then I thought, well, wait a minute. I do kind of care about markets and possible audiences, and the agents and publishers to whom I will try to sell my book. I mean, if I didn’t care about them, if I was only "creating" for myself and myself alone I wouldn’t bother querying, right? I would just write anything that came into my head instead of trying to pick the story that has the best chance of commercial success.

It’s a fine line, I think. I think you do have to write for yourself. Because if your heart and soul aren’t in your work, it’s lifeless, flat. And, something I discovered while revising my first book, if you focus too much on who will be reading your work, you may start editing yourself and edit the life right out of your story. My first book was a romance, and I kept thinking “My mom is going to read this! I can’t have them kissing like that!!” Yeah…that book was in constant need of help until I stopped worrying so much about what people might think about the book and just WROTE.

But, I think it is wise to be conscious of markets and trends and potential audiences – though not to the point that you start second-guessing yourself and your work. Write for yourself, create something just to create it, write like no one but yourself will ever see it, and if that’s good enough for you or for that project, then great. It really is a truly awesome reward to hold your creation in your hands, whether anyone else will ever lay eyes on it or not.

However, when it comes time to edit…if you decide you do want to aim for that publishing dream…I think it is wise to turn your thoughts a little more outward. Stay true to yourself, to your story, to your voice…but be open to suggestions, to the “rules,” and be willing to make the necessary changes.

I have poems and stories that no one else will ever see. I wrote them for me and me alone. But the books I want to get published…as much as it hurts to “murder my darlings,” I am all for it if it will get me that one step closer. Axing entire chapters and characters may hurt like I’m loping off an appendage, but by golly I’ll do it! :D

WIP Wednesday

All right, so I don't have awesome progress to report. I do have half of another chapter done....okay, maybe it's just a few paragraphs, but it will be done soon!!!

So, instead of talking about my dismal writing progress, I think I will just gloat about another awesome day in my life....today is my daughter's birthday. She was born on this day, four years ago.....and two months early. I wasn't even allowed to hold her for several days - and aside from a quick kiss when she was first delivered, I didn't see her at all for 24 hours (as I was in bad shape myself).

So each and every birthday we reach is another cause for rejoicing. She made it, she's thriving, she's beautiful, extremely intelligent, independent, strong, opinionated, fearless, wonderful, incredible.....and, along with her brother Connor, is the pride and joy of my life.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYANNA!!!!

Holy Cow...Got an Award!

I am touched and very honored to have received the Superior Scribbler award from my awesome writing and crit buddy (who I was recently lucky enough to meet in Real Life) Christine Fonseca.

Christine has been such a great friend - she's there to support me when I'm inching toward that ledge, she's always willing to slog through my work and has been an especially huge help and support with my non-fiction endeavors. And I was lucky enough to recently become a part of her YA fiction crit group. Her awesomeness is beyond words :D

So, here is the rundown on this cool award:

1. Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.

2. Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award. (That would be the wonderful Christine)

3. Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to This Post, which explains The Award.

4. Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we’ll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!

5. Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.

And now, on to my five choices....which were unbelievably hard! I read so many wonderful blogs and I come across new ones every day. But, since I couldn't pick everyone, here are the five I chose...

1. B.J. Anderson at Hope Springs Eternal
2. Kate Karyus Quinn at The Lovers, the Dreamers, and Me
3. Tess at Tess Hilmo
4. Scott at A Writer's Blog and Rants from the Soapbox
5. Sandra at Dual Citizenship in SpecFic and Mundania

How to Find the Time

I seem to be having the hardest time getting back into my routine. I think I need a vacation to recuperate from my vacation :D Or maybe just a really good nap...or three :D In any case, I will get back on the ball tomorrow, but for today, I'll rerun a post from back when I first started my blog.

I have lost track of how many people have asked me how I find the time to write. The answer is easy….I just do. It’s a struggle. It’s not easy. There are some things I have to sacrifice. But it is doable. So here are a few things I attempt to do in order to maximize my writing time.

1. Carry a notebook and pen, a recorder, laptop, etc.
One thing I noticed about myself is that even when I’m not writing, I’m writing. Story ideas, conversations between characters, ideas for scenes…these are always running through my head. I tend to get epiphanies when I’m in the shower or doing the dishes. I may not have time in the middle of a load of dishes to rush to my computer and write a scene the moment it occurs to me, but if take a second to jot down a few notes, then I have something to work on when I can sit down at my computer. This both saves me the frustration of trying to remember something I really wanted to include in my book and saves me precious minutes of think time when I am in front of my screen.

2. Get chores and errands done in a timely manner.
This is something I struggle with, but if I can get my household chores and errands completed early in the day, then whatever spare moments present themselves can be used to write. I can concentrate on my story instead of feeling guilty that I should be doing dishes or laundry instead.

3. Treat it like a job.
Author Rosellen Brown spelled it out perfectly. She said:

It’s a job. It’s not a hobby. You don’t write the way you build a model airplane. You have to sit down and work, to schedule you time and stick to it. Even it it’s just for an hour or so each day, you have to get a babysitter and find the time. If you’re going to make writing succeed you have to approach it as a job.

Just like a “real” job, writing is not always fun. It’s work. It’s HARD work. Editing, critiquing, rewriting, researching, replotting…this stuff all takes time and can sometimes get downright tedious. This is why treating writing like a job can really be helpful. You don’t always like your job, but you still have to do it. Approach your writing like you’d approach your job. Just Do It! Agatha Christie said:

Write even when you don’t want to, don’t much like what you are writing, and aren’t writing particularly well.

It is not always important WHAT you write – that is what editing is for. What is important is that you sit down and DO IT. Butt to chair, fingers to keyboard (or pen to paper). When you least feel like writing is when you need to do it the most.


In an effort to do this, I do two things.

• Make a writing schedule.
My children are in preschool from 8:30 to 11:00 on Mondays and Wednesdays, and my son is gone those hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My daughter entertains herself well for and hour or so if my son isn’t there to fight with, so those four days are my writing days. I will squeeze in writing any other time I can, but I schedule my set writing hours while my kids are out of the house or asleep. Fridays through Sundays I try to write for an hour after everyone has gone to bed.

• Set goals.
In addition to having my scheduled writing time, I set a word count goal for each day. My goal is to write 1000 words a day. Sometimes I am on a roll and can get that done in half an hour, and sometimes I will write for two hours and only get 500 words out. Sometimes I meet my goal, sometimes not, and sometimes I exceed it. I can almost always get 1000 words written in about an hour – which means an hour and 1000 words a day, five to seven days a week, and I’ve got a finished novel (first draft) in three months. Regardless, it gives me something to shoot for. You can set your goal higher or lower, depending on the time you have available, but give yourself some sort of objective to aim for.

4. Prioritize your activities

We all have spare moments in the day. What we do with those moments is what is important. If you truly want to find the time to write, you have to be willing to sacrifice. I have a lot of television shows that I love. I love to read. I play the piano and cross-stitch. I have children that want to play with their mommy (although I would like to note that time with my children is NOT something I sacrifice in order to write).

This is where having a writing schedule really helps. My writing time is scheduled in the mornings. That means when my kids come home, I can play with them, do some chores, spend some time in the afternoons reading a good book (if I am lucky enough to have the time), and watch my favorite shows in the evening. And I can spend my time doing this because I know I have already met my writing goal for the day.

If you work full time, you can try and squeeze in some writing time on your lunch break, or wake up a little early or go to bed a little later in order to get your writing time in. It IS possible to find moments to write, no matter what your schedule is….but sometimes it requires a bit of sacrifice.

During the summer, my kids are not in school, so I tend to tape whatever shows I want to watch and write in the evenings after they’ve gone to bed. Or I’ll write in the afternoons instead of reading or playing piano, or choosing some other activity. And very often (because Real Life has a funny way of intervening and throwing all my well-made plans out the window) I sacrifice sleep in order to write. Last year when I was finishing my novel, Treasured Lies, I was waking up at 4:30 in the morning and going to bed at midnight because the only time I could sit down and write, uninterrupted, was when my family was asleep. That is not something I could keep up indefinitely, but in a pinch, I am willing to sacrifice a little sleep in order to write.


Now, let’s face it, Real Life is going to get in the way sometimes. It’s going to throw your carefully crafted schedule right out the window, probably on a daily basis. But it shouldn’t matter. If you want to write, write. Find the time. Eat dinner a little faster and use the three minutes you saved scarfing your meal to write a few lines. Carry a recorder around and dictate your book while you vacuum. Scribble on Kleenexes while you wait at the doctor’s with your sick child (just be careful not to use said Kleenex for said sick child’s nose). The time is there…you just have to find it and use it.

Author Kenneth Atchity said:

Every human being has exactly the same amount of time, and yet consider the output of Robert Louis Stevenson, John Peabody Harrington, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury,William Goldman, Neil Simon, Joyce Caorl Oates, Agatha Christie and John Gardner. How did they accomplish what they have? They weren’t deflected from their priorities by activities of lesser importance. The work continues, even though everything else may have to give. They know that their greatest resource is themselves. Wasting time is wasting themselves. When people ask them, “Where do you find the time?” they wonder, “Where do you lose it?”