Making Time to Make Things

If you want to write, and you have a busy life, you need tell that To-Do List who's boss. (It's you, you're the boss.)

Alison Moritsugu, “Conquest,” oil on maple and birch

But how, writers are always asking themselves, each other, me, their Google calendars, can I find time to write? There’s work and family and household and being a citizen and the car needs a new muffler and the cat barfed on the rug and also I’m tired, I’m just so tired, and there’s so much good stuff on TV, have you even seen TV.

I *have* seen TV. It’s tremendous. And of course television seems positively quaint now, as digital distractions go — how about the endless scroll, the clicking and swiping, the everything contained in the tiny computer that lives in your pocket. It’s miraculous! It’s fascinating! Twitter is dying and you want to watch it twitch and shudder, you sicko!

I understand, I really do. And I think the real problem here is really two different problems. And by two I mean three.

Here’s how it breaks down:

1. The Obligations…