You Can Write a Book. Yes. You Have the Time. Yes.

Jeff Cohen

Lately my mystery writing has become the focus of my professional life. This was not always the case. But since Josh has helped me become a (pretty much) full-time novelist my days have largely been shuffled toward writing. I still do some teaching and the occasional article elsewhere, but the proportions have changed, and I'm very grateful to everybody buying the books for that.

But when I tell people that I will have four book deadlines between now and this time in 2016, they look at me as if I were saying I was going to lift the Empire State Building and carry it to Ogden, Utah. Trust me, the task(s) I have before me is (are) hard, but not anything most mystery writers couldn't do given the circumstances. 

The fact is, deadlines are my friend. They motivate me to get the book done by a certain date, and I have the mindset borne of decades of freelance writing: Never disappoint the customer. Those books will be done on time, and they'll be the best possible books I could write at that moment in time.

Honestly, given the deadlines coming up, I don't have time to not be writing a book.

I'm still on the 1,000-word-a-day diet, but instead of having a few months between bouts, I now have a week or two. And that's exactly the way I've always wanted it. But I've learned something:

If I have an hour a day to write the 1,000 words, I'll write them in an hour. If I have all day with nothing to do but write the 1,000 words, it's going to take me all day.

That has some connection to the people one meets in the course of generally living the writer's life who say they'd do the same but they don't have the time.

Now, I don't for a second think these people aren't busy. On the contrary, I'm positive they are. I don't think they're not dedicated to the idea of writing a novel, short story, stage play, screenplay, treatise, monograph or laundry list. I have no doubt that's true as well. 

But if you want to write, you can write. You have 10 minutes? That's when. So it takes longer to finish something. You've still written it. 

When I was young (and the Earth was still cooling) I wrote screenplays. I was also a newspaper reporter or a public relations writer or a trade magazine editor or a full-time freelancer at the time. And I wrote screenplays. When I could shoehorn them in between telephone calls, pediatrician appointments (for my children--I wasn't THAT young!), commuting, making the occasional dinner, walking the occasional dog or getting the oil changed in the occasional car. I wrote then. And those screenplays (I could show them to you--some are actually good) led to my being a crime fiction writer, which led to me being a full-time novelist, which led to me not complaining to you about that on this blog.

These days, I write when I'm not working through the red tape for my mother's assisted living facility and various government agencies which (hopefully) will pay to help her stay there. I write when I'm not driving to Philadelphia to teach or driving home from Philadelphia after teaching. I'm dead tired when I get home from that commute (it's about an hour and a half each way, and I'm not as young as you used to be), but if the 1,000 words aren't in the bank, I stay up after the baseball game to ensure they will be before I go to bed. 

I grade papers, I do telephone calls for newspaper articles, I harass my agent (right, Josh?), check up on my daughter the teacher and my son the tech guy, very occasionally exercise, prepare lectures, write the newspaper articles, email students and my agent (right, Josh?), sometimes interact with readers who are kind enough to get in touch, and walk the not-so-occasional dog.

And the 1,000 words get written. Every day. Including weekends and holidays. Except that week or two between books. During that week or two I wonder what the heck I should do with myself.

Thanks, no. I don't need suggestions.

Comments

[Patty]

I appreciate your dedication, especially since I reap the benefits of wonderful stories that I love to read.

[Lynne Patrick]

That week or two between books? You mean you're not planning the next one then?

[Jeff Cohen]

Planning? What’s that?

[Gigi Pandian]

"If I have an hour a day to write the 1,000 words, I'll write them in an hour. If I have all day with nothing to do but write the 1,000 words, it's going to take me all day."

SO TRUE!