Fiction Scribe

Sandi Kahn Shelton, author of ‘Kissing Games of the World’ is joining us here today to talk about a facet of our focus for the beginning of 2009 - getting that novel written. I hope you’ll join me in welcoming her to the site. Feel free to add on your own comments or questions.

Thank you so much for inviting me to come and write a guest post on your blog! It’s great to be here talking about finding time for writing (even though the question itself makes me feel just the tiniest twinge of anxiety, you understand. As I write this, I’m breaking out in hives.)

“Where do you writers find the time to write?” is a question that normal people ask in amazement when they come to the readings and signings we do. This is always the second question we get asked, the first being, “Where do you get your ideas?”

The answer to both questions is the same: We don’t have the slightest idea. For lack of a better answer, we just call it magic.

Ideas seem to spring forth out of nowhere, as if they just exist in the air and we happen to bump into them.

Magic. Obviously.

And as for time, if you’re lucky enough to have characters who are calling you to write for them, then you quickly discover that they seem to be in charge of providing the time and space to do it. You’ll be in the middle of the night enjoying a deep sleep when suddenly you find yourself awake, staring at the ceiling, and with a character sitting in your head, cheerfully dictating the next scene of your novel.

You try begging. “Could I please get some more sleep? I’ll write down anything you say in the morning, I swear!”

The answer is no. You ignore your characters at your peril. Whatever they have to tell you right then will not wait.

And so it goes. They gradually take over your life. When you are not writing, they are waiting off to the side, ready to jump in and tell you what happens next. You lose interest in doing things you used to do. Your idea of a really great time in sitting at your desk in your pajamas, typing furiously.

And when the day comes when you sit down to write for an hour, and you look up a moment later and realize that five hours has passed and that you haven’t started dinner or let the dog out—well, then, your characters have taken over. They’ve come alive and they are running the show.

“You will write when I tell you,” they say to you.

And you happily agree. Because there is nothing quite like that thrill of losing yourself in your writing, of giving yourself over to the creation of this work.

Oh, sure. It’s not always so easy. Procrastination happens sometimes. You will get stuck and not know what comes next. Marketing even happens, when you must stop writing for a while and go out and meet the public and talk about your book. Holidays come, family comes to visit, you inadvertently sign up to run your kid’s school hockey program.

But once you’ve gotten the writing bug, you’ll always come back to the writing. You’ll make the time, even if it means you give up other things that you used to like to do. Because that state of flow—when the ideas just tumble out, one after another, and time just flies by—well, that’s the happiest state of mind a writer can know.

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Be sure to stop back Friday for my interview with Sandi.