​If I don’t have much time to write how can I write?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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If article writing requires a substantial amount of time, say 5-6 hours continuously, and if I am not able to get that much time, then how can I write? Basically, writing involves two distinct faculties of our mind.
There is a creative faculty, through which ideas come out, through which ideas sort of flourish. And there is a critical side, through which ideas are organized, they are critiqued, and they are built in terms of their soundness, their coherence. So, quite often, when we feel that I am not able to write, we are often trying to access the creative side and the critical side at the same time.
That is, I am trying to get an idea and I am also trying to make the idea sound. Then, if I try to do both at the same time, some people may be able to do it, but quite often, this becomes the cause of the writer’s block, where we just could not move forward. So, one way ahead is that just separate the two phases.
So, have some time for creative writing. So, that means, whenever we get some idea, just write it down. Even if it is not coherent, just write it down or do not get time to write it down.
What I do is, if I am moving around, then I just record it. And when I record it, at that time, afterwards, I can, even if I record for 1 minute or 2 minutes or even 30 seconds, 1 sentence, I might record. And that I can develop afterwards.
So, if you decide that every day, 10 minutes I will do creative writing. So, I might write 50 words in 10 minutes or 100 words in 10 minutes. So, I will find that at the end of a week, I have something like 500 or 1000 words.
And then if I just sit down for 2 hours or 1 hour or 3 hours or whatever I get, then I can critically evaluate. See, when I have to contemplate in a vacuum, it becomes difficult to contemplate. So, if we have some structure around which we have to contemplate, hey, this does not fit in over here.
This is a good point. I can elaborate this. This maybe I need to move about.
So, when we have, when our, there are some moments of inspiration, when we can just process, we can just analyze, process, present, everything works in a flow. But when we are not in that flow, at that time writing should not stop. So, it is good if we have some raw material that we can churn.
Then, okay, I have this, this, this, I can, okay, maybe I will move this back. And what will come will not be great, but it will be good. So, if you find that you are not getting time for contemplation, then just try to do what you can in the available time and separate the creative and the critical phases.
And some amount of productivity will definitely come out by that. So, I do it frequently for my Gita DG articles. I have, I decided in one month, I will write down 50,000 words.
So, I took, I think June, yeah, two months ago I did that. So, 50,000 words means around 180 Gita DG articles. They are very crude drafts.
But I just decided every day I will write something like 2,000 words. And in that month, I wrote around 56,000 words. So, now I have those drafts.
Anytime I have to sit, I can just, okay, I have written on, usually Gita DG article is 300 words. I have written around 400 words, 350 to 400 words. So, they are disorganized.
I can never put that as an article on the site. But even if I am not in a, even if my creative uses are not flowing and even if I am not in an inspired state, still I can process this. And I can come up with a decent article.
If I am very inspired, I might be able to really refine this and make it a good article, make it a great article. But otherwise, it is at least an acceptable article. So, just separating the creative and critical phases and just writing whenever we get time and making a discipline every day, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever I can, I will write.
And then when we sit down, even if we do not have 4, 5 hours, the critical phase can be done in weeks, maybe at 1 hour today, 1 hour tomorrow, 1 hour tomorrow. So, something like some authors do that. 5 days they keep for creative writing and 2 days for critical, critical evaluation and assembly.
So, like that you can distribute. I think all of us will have to see what works best for us. But just do not let the lack of availability of time cause the stopping of writing.
If you just make sure that I keep moving forwards. When we say I cannot contemplate and write unless I have substantial amount of time, that means basically that like that we are thinking all the time. We are just not able to think in a way that is very sound.
So, do not worry about soundness. Have some time and just you are expressing yourself. Other times when you are editing yourself and refining yourself