Short Snippets: How You Can Get Some Writing (or Revising) Done

If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you know that I talk about making time to write a lot. I focus on writing every Monday. I’ve done whole series on things you can do in short amounts of time, instead of whining about how you don’t have any time.

The key is, you have to plan. Again, this is something I talk about a lot. But recently, two things have brought this to the forefront of my mind again.

Use a Timer

A recently read a book called IT TAKES AN EGG TIMER: A GUIDE TO CREATING THE TIME FOR YOUR LIFE by Joanne Tombrakos. She recommends using an actual, old-fashioned timer, not the one on your phone. Break things your tasks into chunks of time–never more than 60 min.

Reading the book just affirmed everything I’ve been saying: you CAN find time to write. We waste so much time doing things, like checking Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. You can still do those things, but we have to limit our time.

What are the implications for writing? You can write in short spurts. One hour is ideal, but you can get a lot accomplished in 20 minutes.

Revise in Short Spurts

I had the great pleasure of attending the third annual writing retreat at Mimslyn Inn in Luray, Virginia with Candice Ransom. Every year there is a different theme. Every year I get to hang out in a really fabulous hotel room and think about writing.

This year the theme was novel revision. I’m doing yet another revision of a novel at home, but I also took a new novel with me that needs revision. Candice recommended that we set up a workflow for ourselves–a plan to accomplish the revision. What will I do first, second, etc? She gave us lots of revision ideas, and many of them can be done in short spurts.

In fact, she recommended that we work in 20-30 minute revision chunks.

Plan it Out

The key in Tombrakos’s and Ransom’s suggestions is to MAKE A PLAN.

Tombrakos says you need to look at your day and block it off into tasks that require 20 minutes or 60 minutes. The key is knowing before you start.

Ransom suggests we make a workflow–a plan on what to tackle.

I came home and made a list of the things I know I need to do in my novel revision. I purposely did most of them in small chunks whenever possible.

You can make time to write. It just requires a little planning.