People often ask me when I have time to write. I have two boys into sports and scouts and I volunteer as coach and den leader respectively. It’s not easy juggling family life and a writing life. The key for me is to write when everyone else, including the pets, are asleep. For me, that’s early in the morning. Often times I’m barely awake, typing on the computer in my underwear and downing coffee to try and gain better focus.
It’s not pretty. As the photo below contests. This was me working this morning, after throwing on some shorts for the camera. As you can no doubt see, I’m on chapter two of Starforgers and using Google Docs to write.
Sometimes I use the Macbook and sit on the couch and other times I use the Ubuntubook and sit at the dining room table. The point being, my butt is in a chair or the couch and I’m writing. It makes little difference what tools you use or how you write, just that you are writing. It also doesn’t matter where you write. You don’t need some fancy den lined with book shelves and overlooking a beautiful natural setting. Although, that would be pretty nice.
Where and when do you write?
When I do, anywhere and everywhere. I’ve written in the shower, on the throne, in the yard, in the car, on the boat, under a tree, on a rock outcropping. I’ve pulled over and lost my place in rush hour traffic just to get some stuff down before I forget. I’ve actually had a cop pull in behind me to see if all was OK for one of those.
I don’t use Google Docs, myself, simply because I don’t trust the security of the cloud yet. So that means for me, one of the tasks I have to do is keeping all these various input points (my phone, laptop, desktop, paper) synched in a master file somewhere, in this case on my desktop at home and a thumbdrive I always carry. More work than Google Docs since all my input devices except the pen and paper can access Google Docs. Someday?
Like you say, the point is to do it.