Writing is a lot like exercising - something I feel good about once it is done, but finding the time to do it is another story.  I’m a procrastinator and the more anxiety I feel toward my writing, the more I tend to put it off. Everything else comes first: the laundry, errands, cooking. And after all that I end up exhausted and the last thing I want to do is exercise or write. I’ve discovered something: there is no perfect time to write and if I wait until that time presents itself I’ll never get anything done. Sometimes we have to make choices about how we use our time. Do we watch television or chat on the phone or do we sit down and work on something that’s been problematic for us within our writing? I’m sure I can find all kinds of excuses to not write, but the need to write is still there, the characters gnawing away inside my head, all trying to get out at once. Yes, I’m fairly certain that I need to write more than I need to watch tv.  My mother always called that inner urge to create a “fire in the belly”.

Marion Roach Smith, author of The Memoir Project, has suggested that rather than write in bed (of which I am guilty), that the writer be “hospitable” to their writing, meaning that one makes an appointment, a set time to sit down every day at a table or computer and write free of distractions