Building Rome (and Your Writing Career)—15 Minutes at a Time

by Marilyn Hilton

We've all been in that "in-between" space in our schedules: waiting in the car for school to let out, waiting on the bleachers for swim class to end, waiting in the dentist's waiting room, sitting at endless red lights or at the coffee shop for your friend to arrive, wondering what to do with the 15 minutes left of your lunch hour because you had to run to the post office or school or the gym, or—gasp!—you had to eat. And you're anxiously thinking about your writing to-do list and wishing you had a block of uninterrupted time to work on it.

Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, neither was a book written or a writing career launched. But a book or a career can be built in uninterrupted bites of time. Often, all we have are those 15-minute bites in which to write or research or market—and sometimes that's all we need.

In 15 minutes, you can do any of these:

• Write 15 scene cards
• Draft a scene—real fast by hand or typing
• Outline a novel—yes, you can: 1 inciting incident, 2 turning points, 1 final conflict, and 1 resolution
• Draft a blog post
• Look up era-appropriate names for your characters
• Describe the setting of your next book
• Identify libraries in your area to contact about speaking visits
• Look through a magazine or the web for models for your characters
• Research two agents or two editors to query
• Outline a synopsis
• List the things you need to research for your novel
• Write about the memory that has been nudging you
• Read two blog posts and leave comments
• Identify schools in your region to contact about visits
• Organize your writing space
• Find photos that could have been taken in your setting
• Brainstorm a list of blog topics
• Look up one thing on your novel-research list
• Write two pages of your manuscript (for inspiration, see Kristen's post on speed drafting)
• Write a journal entry about something you observed today
• Complete the easy parts of a character profile worksheet
• Draft a query letter
• Brainstorm "what happens next?" where your manuscript is stuck
• In your diary, write what happened today
• Identify bookstores in your region to contact about signings
• Read a chapter of the book at the top of your stack
• Spend 15 minutes on the social medium of your choice (remember to retweet and share, too)
• Write an online book review
• Create a new playlist for a scene, a character, or your book
• Read something that inspires you
• Write a letter to your growing-up self just before or just after something changed enormously
• Read through and highlight notes you took at the last conference you attended
• Review comments from your critique partners, letting your mind formulate solutions
• Brainstorm speaking topics
• Write a thank-you note to someone who critiqued your work at a recent conference, and then seal, address, and stamp it—you can take it to the post office on your lunch hour

The next time you find yourself in between on your schedule, try one of these 15-minute tasks. Or pull out your to-do list and choose one to finish. One day you may look up and realize your book is finished and your career on its way.

What can you do in 15 minutes?

Tweetables:

What can you write in 15 minutes? @TurboMonkeys - Tweet this
Got 15 minutes (for your writing career)? @TurboMonkeys - Tweet this
How to write your book 15 minutes at a time @TurboMonkeys - Tweet this

Teacher Conference: Teaching Writers Share Lessons

When people find out I’m a mom to a bunch, a teacher, and a writer, they often say, “I don’t know how you do it.” Seriously,  me neither. There's coffee and the frequent modification of standards, and yet lots of days I'm pretty sure I'm not quite doing it. Still, there isn’t any part I’d give up. I love teaching, writing, and momming (though they take turns being "the favorite").

Since I’m committed to on-going chaos, I thought I’d call on teaching/writing friends to see how they handle all the hats they wear, and these generous, over-worked souls answered!

The interviewees:

Dawn Callahan: My dear friend, critique partner, and a rockin’ high school high school English teacher. Dawn has the coolest zombie story in the works and has taught me tons about both writing and dedication.

Terri Farley, author of the Phantom Stallion series and Seven Tears Into the Sea, and long-time teacher of middle school, high school, and college students prior to dedicating herself to full-time writing. Terri continues to teach now as a visiting author and mentor to writers. (I had the privilege of working with Terri as my mentor teacher when I did my student teaching 63 eons ago! How lucky am I?)

Sarah McGuire: My beloved fellow monkey –and an up and coming writer of rich tales full of adventure and heart. Sarah teaches high school math and creative writing (I don't think there's anything she can't do).

David Michael Slater, author of 20 books (including picture books, the teen Sacred Books series, and a couple of titles for adults). He’s that prolific, and David teaches full-time for a gifted/talented magnet middle school program.

I asked everyone how teaching helps and hinders their writing. David offered that being among kids all the time helps him stay in tune with the middle grade and young adult mindset. Sarah agrees, and adds that besides the great opportunities for listening in on the worlds of students, teaching helps avoid the "lost in my own head" syndrome writers can be prone to. She says, "life outside writing is the wellspring of our writing." Dawn, too, finds that being in the thick of things, surrounded by kids engaged with reading and writing, keeps her in the mood to write. On the other hand, she points out that all the energy teaching and grading require can leave a person drained. Terri spoke of how, despite intent to grade holistically, she couldn't help but dive in and spend lots of time responding to even simple assignments. She still has nightmares that involve grade books. As much as we all love our chosen profession, all agreed teaching can be utterly consuming with planning, meetings, giving feedback, and record-keeping leaving little time for writing--the writing we'd like to be doing, anyway.

So what can be done?

• David makes use of the snippets of time he does have. He explains, "Even five minutes is worth it. I can't tell you how many times I've found 50 pages of a draft I'd written, only to have no idea when the heck I'd written them." He also suggests trying not to have to reinvent your job each year, but he followed it with "Good luck with that!" so I suspect he's been as successful in that capacity as I have.
• Sarah brings up some sage and comforting advice from our own Turbo Monkey (and former teacher!) Ellen Jellison. Ellen, she says, "essentially gave me permission to not write during the week. (Sometimes I do, though, because my fingers are just itching to get a scene down. I just don't feel guilty if I can't.) She suggested I make notes about all the ideas I have during the week and then write on the weekend."
• Dawn suggests setting boundaries, as difficult as that is. She dedicates a set amount of time to grading essays, for example, and then puts them away for the day, and she makes every effort to use prep time at school efficiently so home time is free (well, freer). Papers can wait "a little longer," especially if the reward is a happy, productive writing teacher.
• Terri offers perspective gleaned from years of writing, teaching, and parenting (experience she conveys so well in her workshops--don't miss a chance to see her!). She urges writers to "compartmentalize your writing as much as you can. Let others know when you will be writing and then follow through. Don't watch TV. Don't do Facebook. If you have to research something for your writing, make a list and do it later. Keep your flow!!! Don't take phone calls unless they're urgent. Don't listen to make sure your kids are doing their assigned chores (you'll know soon enough)." She encourages writers to not allow family or friends to guilt them into losing focus and reminds them that "your work is only as important to your family/friends as it is to you!"

The pay-off to taking those stolen moments dedicated to our own writing is the chance to have our stories be part of the lives of even more of those so-worth-it young people we care about. This dawned on me as I read in Terri's response how a favorite part of being a writer is reader mail, because it reminds her that she hasn't really left teaching, but just has "a larger classroom."

I got so many great thoughts and tips from my writing and teaching pals--I'm saving some of them up to fuel future blogs! But before I head off to set guilt-free boundaries and compartmentalize writing time with a little help from noise-cancelling headphones:

Do you have any tips for eeking out more writing time despite job/life demands, or maybe a story about a teacher who made a difference to you? You know teachers live for those stories. :)