I hear constantly from fellow writers that they have trouble carving out time to write. Or they have the time, but they’re often swamped by writer’s block.
I seem to be the opposite. I have lots of time (in theory at least) to write and I rarely have writer’s block (too many years of being a writer, both as a newspaper journalist and as a published author, have mostly inoculated me against this).
At the moment, I’m trying to give myself a writing break, mostly because the timing is perfect. I handed in my latest manuscript to my publisher in late May and there’s no rush to start another novel. I busied myself this spring with a sizable freelance writing project and other paid work. Summer is here now and, well, that’s the perfect time to kick back and enjoy, right? Read more
I came upon a Twitter thread where a frustrated author was venting. This author, who I might add, is already at least a decade ahead of my writing success because she has a published book that in my imagination has a stunning hard cover hugging her words. She was asked by an interested party, “So, how many books have you sold?”
In photography, the golden hour (sometimes known as the magic hour) is a period shortly after sunrise or before sunset during which daylight is redder and softer than when the Sun is higher in the sky. In medicine, the golden hour is right after a traumatic event. The first hour after the accident is when the patient is most likely to see the greatest recovery. For me, the golden hour, or my magic hour is before sunrise, when the telephone doesn’t ring, the kids are still sleeping and the demands of email can be forgotten until after nine. 
If you’re anything like me, you have a life that keeps getting in the way of your writing. I have a job, two kids, other hobbies, and a house and property to look after. I try to balance it all out, juggle all the balls, but sometimes you’re thrown a curve that can keep you pre-occupied for months. Or maybe you’re even thrown three curve balls, at the same time, plus all the other stuff that comes up like graduations and birthdays. There are at least two reasons to keep a writing practice going even when it seems like you’ll never have more than half an hour to write at a time. 
