Finding time to write

“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.” - Vita Sackville-West 

I’m writing a series of short stories at the moment, for no other reason than it’s something I enjoy doing – writing.  While walking backwards and forwards to work, I mull over plot lines and characters, trying to find ways to tie these separate entities into

a coherent story line.  I’ll be sitting on a train trying to work out whether to let my hero escape; or die, depending on my mood.  Laying in bed in the middle of the night, I’ll find my mind trying to decide what my main character’s traits are.  What does she wear?  What is her favourite food?  Is she blond or brunette?  Does she smoke? 

     But my problem at the moment is actually finding the time to put all this down onto paper.  I find that my writing time is limited to a few hours (at most) each evening; with a few hours more on a Sunday afternoon perhaps.  I scribble down notes into a book, or onto the back of a piece of paper, and sometimes even into my phone, but I’m having real trouble getting the bones of my writing done.  Blogging has never caused me this problem; in that I usually blog about my actual life, meaning that I don’t have to think too much about plot lines or characters:  I just blog about what's happened, which is easy.  

     Maybe I need a writing room like the one Vita Sackville-West had at Sissinghurst Castle Gardens.  The poet and gardening writer lived there in the 1930s, and when I visited in 2012; I was astounded by her beautiful writing room.  Who could fail to find time to write, in such lovely surroundings?  

Vita Sackville-West's, writing room at Sissinghurst Castle Gardens.