“When do you find the time to write?”
The short answer is I don’t. You have to make the time to write. That’s very easy to say and very hard to do. I’ve been working on a longer project (book two in a series about a boy and robots and smugglers and some not so fun times for a sad city) and to do that I’ve had to take time away from my every-day job. Lucky for me I have the ability to do that. But I don’t always have the time to do that, and not everyone is as lucky as I am to have a job that allows for that.
So what to do? When can you make up stories if you don’t have time? Many of you have things piled up to do? Maybe a job? Maybe school? Maybe a job and school and a messy room?
Maybe try to let your mind wander as you do things that don’t need your full attention. (Obviously, I don’t mean at work or at school!) I mean when you have to make that bed, or clean up those dirty clothes. Where does your imagination go? Do you ever wash the dishes? Do you talk to yourself as you do? What do you say?
I like to cook. It helps calm me down, slapping spices onto chicken and waiting for the smells to start rising from the oven. I found my way through a lot of my new book while looking at raw chicken (an especially sad moment that I can’t wait to share with readers!). Maybe there’s a story you tell yourself when you’re walking to school, or waiting for the bus. What is it? What stories do you tell yourself when you don’t know you’re telling stories?
Sometimes it’s not about time with a story in front of you, but the story inside you.
An exercise for you to try: write about someone doing the most boring thing you do during the day (brushing teeth? making the bed? stare at your shoelaces?) but make it seem like the most exciting thing to ever happen.