For a long time, my writing process began with a walk.
I would take daily walks and use that time to think through whatever came next. I would write a scene over and over in my head. By the time I finally sat down to put it on the page, it was already in pretty good shape. In a sense, I had completed several rounds of revision before I typed the first sentence.
It was a good process, but it depended on two things: I needed time to take the walk, and then I needed another block of time to write.
Anyone with a family, small children, or a busy professional life knows how often that combination fails to materialize. For years, I might find time for the walk but not for the writing. Even when I could carve out time at home, it came with the familiar guilt that I should be spending it with my family or helping manage the children.
Eventually, I realized that my writing process was asking my life to give me something it simply did not have: two generous blocks of time, in the right order, with enough peace and quiet to use both.
So I tried something different.
I brought my laptop into the kitchen and started what I called the Lightning Round.
At the time, I had three or four story ideas rattling around in my head. Some had been there for years. Others had been there for decades. Instead of choosing one and waiting until I could give it my full attention, I opened one and began to write.
No polishing. No revising each sentence into submission.
Just write.
When the well ran dry, whether after five minutes or fifteen, I closed that project and opened another. If I became bored, stuck, or simply felt my attention wandering, I switched again.
The projects competed for momentum.
Eventually, one of them won.
That idea became Ben Free. At a certain point, it stopped being one project among several and became the story I had to finish. The day after I finished it, I started another Lightning Round.
Because it had worked.
This is the process I have settled on, at least for now. It is less romantic than the long, thoughtful walk. It may be less elegant than waiting for the perfect idea, the perfect morning, or the perfect stretch of uninterrupted time.
But it fits the life I actually have.
I may not be able to find time to walk, think, ponder, and then write. But if I want to be a writer, I have to write.
That is the time I have to find.
