Today, this article about protecting your writing time really spoke to me. The author of this article was also a parent and lived “a highly regimented life,” as I often feel I do, and didn’t feel like they had time to write after being done with responsibilities.
They recommended setting aside time, which I have not done as faithfully as I should, even as short as 30 minutes a day.
Would that be effective? 30 minutes? I’m interested in finding out. I am usually, as the article commented, “waiting for the muse to visit me,” and that isn’t something that just happens, and certainly not in a prescribed 30 minute window.
Also interestingly, the author differentiated writing from “Reading, Research, Editing, Submitting (your work to publishers), Talking (about your writing), Self promotion, Emailing, Facebook”
All of these things (except for Facebook, at least for me) are necessary for your writing, but they aren’t writing. They’re added to it and so should not be included in the special block of time.
Finally, there was a passage included from J.K. Rowling, who, even with her awesome library of work, says this:
“Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have “essential” and “long overdue” meetings on those days. The funny thing is that, although writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to have to fight for time in which to do it. Some people do not seem to grasp that I still have to sit down in peace and write the books, apparently believing that they pop up like mushrooms without my connivance. I must therefore guard the time allotted to writing as a Hungarian Horntail guards its firstborn egg.”
As part of this years’ 52/52 Challenge, I have a goal to submit writing into a writing contest. I don’t want to see that goal go up in smoke.
I Didn't Just Wake Up This Morning With A Craving 
Such a timely post. I think I’m going to take part in NaNoWriMo again this year. Mostly because it makes me put my butt in a chair and write. I need to get back to writing more regularly. As for whether 30 minutes a day is enough? Well — it’s better than nothing!
I didn’t even think of it in time for NaNo! I think I’ll do NaBloPoMo. How have your past NaNo efforts gone? I did it once and produced 10,000 some words of a story that I’m still working on, which was good to get me started! Let me know how you’re doing!