Making Time To Write

I was enjoying lunch with a manager friend at The Pikey in West Hollywood a short time ago.  If you haven’t been before, GO!  The original chef was trained by Jamie Oliver.  His “thrice-cooked chips” are the best I’ve ever eaten… that goes for any I’ve had in the UK nestled next a fillet of cod in a newspaper wrapping.  They are served with a Worcester aioli.  Order just one round, I dare you.  The building is the old Sunset Boulevard pub, The Coach and Horses… supposedly a watering hole for UK movie stars eager to drown their homesickness in a glass.  But, I digress.

My friend is a manager of screenwriters, and he asked me how it is I find the time to write.  I have a full-time gig and due to my wife’s hour and a half drive out of the valley every day, and the same amount of drive time back, it falls on me to get our daughter to preschool and pick her up, make her supper, etc.  With many writers who lead lives like me, it can be a challenge to find representation because that agent or manager we’re pursuing has been burned before.  Look at it from their point of view.  You live a life full of so many responsibilities that you can’t exactly provide them with new materials to go out there and sell on a regular basis.

So, how does a full-time dad make time for writing to build up an inventory of scripts and continue pumping out the next book in your novel series?

One of the writers who influenced my life bigly gave me the best advice I’ve ever received.  “Just write it,” he instructed.  No excuses.

That’s the first tip I took to heart.  If you are a writer, you WRITE.  It’s what you do.  Whether that is in the middle of the night or on a lunch break, or every moment your kid is in front of the television watching Moana for the umpteenth time.  Kids are actually a great reason to write, rather than a reason to put it off.  I’m always thinking about the writers guild minimum and how that will buy a heck of a lot of diapers and shoes.  What if the script never sells?  Okay, point taken.  But, what has more of a chance making you money… a completed script or you on the sofa?

I love alcohol.  I once told an accomplished NYC surgeon that I was looking to cut back on the drinking, as my wife was having a kid.  The surgeon laughed and replied, “Don’t you know its alcohol that enables you to survive parenthood?”  I have discovered that one drink at the end of the day relaxes my body and brain enough to slip into the mindset of writing.  Two, though, and my brain slips too far into relax mode.  You be the judge.

I’m not as big a fan of exercise, but I do know that if I exercise five to six days a week, I have more physical and mental energy.  It enables to me to stay up later and write longer.  Drink LOTS OF WATER!  I don’t care who you voted for… just please accept that Michelle Obama was right about the water.  2 litres a day is what they say.  (I know, I sound like my own dad now.  “You know they say that vegetarianism isn’t healthy for you.”  “Who’s THEY, Dad?”  “You know, the doctors.”  “Really?  All the doctors?”)

Any know-it-all fellow screenwriter who tells you that you can’t be a successful writer unless you are making it your 9 to 5 job… he’s right… unless you prove him wrong.