No Time for Writing

I couldn't help nodding with agreement at Derek Molata's post on 21st February, entitled Time Woe Bitchslap. The gist is that he gets just one hour a day to write, and sometimes when that hour comes around he's burned out and uninterested in writing.

Me too. I actually get more than an hour a day, but it's hard to quantify. Back in November 2005 I decided to give up writing until the New Year; let's get Christmas out of the way first. And because my web business had dried up (nobody wants a website in December) my wife was working on the computer trying to get some extra income. So my available writing hours disappeared as she worked and I babysat.

But now that work has picked up again (everyone wants a website in January) and my wife has quit her work-at-home computer job, I find myself on the computer all day, just as I want to be... only with no time to write! So, in a nutshell, if I have no work, then Vanessa works and I babysit more. If there IS work, then that's what I do: work. And even though I might find a few hours to do some writing, I'm too tired of sitting on my butt at the computer and just want to get up and walk away. It's like the wife of a taxi driver wanting to go for a drive in the country at the weekend. "Yeah, great," he says. "Just what I need. More driving."

Is there a perfect scenario? Yes: earn money without working. But realistically, if I could generate a deluge of business and deal with it all as quickly as possible, then I can take a week off to write. Or set myself hours to work and hours to write, say five hours working and three hours writing. That would be great!

But at the moment, even though writing is on my mind again, and I want to sit down and get on with it, I feel like I'd be grabbing a couple of minutes here and there, not enough to really get stuck in. I'm procrastinating, I think, making excuses for not managing my time properly. I can think of a number of little things I could give up if I wanted, such as being involved with a certain Yahoo group, or writing this post that no one will read!

I need a clone.