Where do you find the time?

This is pretty much the only question I've been asked about writing often enough to make it into an FAQ column. When do you find time to write? And although I've got plenty of glib answers, I think the simple truth is: I don't have time. I've got two kids, a full time job, a husband, and a moderate to severe addiction to Civilisation 5. I've got friends and housework and unanswered emails and lost keys and a dozen other demands on my time. Realistically speaking, I don't have time to write - but then, neither does anyone else.

It constantly baffles me where anyone ever finds time to do anything. My dad plays twenty hours of bridge a week. Where does he find the time? I have friends who keep track of five different soap operas, or four leagues of football fixtures. My sister has approximately seven hundred friends, all of whom seem to be getting married this year. My eldest son follows uncountable blogs, vlogs, pods, youtube accounts, and has just bought Simcity. A guy at work walks ten miles an evening, for fun. Where does anyone find the time?

The simple answer is, I guess we make time for the things we really want to do. I really like writing - it chills me out, it's fun, it's my way of unwinding, and so I'll go out of my way to find time to do it.

Oh sure, sometimes it's a chore, but everyone feels that way about their hobbies sometimes. Sometimes it's a lot more tempting to go to McDonalds than to football practice. Sometimes you want to hang out with your friends rather than work on that dress you're sewing. I guess the trick is not to make excuses too often, because it's ridiculously easy to fall out of the habit of doing something, and once you lose momentum it's so hard to get going again.

So, yeah. Don't know if there's anything of use to be learned from this, but those are my thoughts: have fun with something, and you'll make time for it.

:(

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." - Anton Ego, Ratatouille

This is the only part of Ratatouille I've always disagreed with. Criticism, when it's done well, is a form of art all of its own, and just as valid as anything else. It takes passion and creativity to produce accurate, entertaining reviews. If ever proof is needed of that, we only need to look at the work of the late great Mr Ebert.

You will be hugely missed, sir.

moving house

Someone much smarter than me (quite possibly Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott, although I can't be sure because for some reason I can't access their brilliant site at wordplayer.com) made an astute observation about identifying problems within a story or screenplay. Some problems are minor and can be easily fixed, others are a complete ball-ache and require a complete tear-down-rebuild in order to set right.

They compared it to building a house and then asking someone's opinion on it. One person might say, "I hate it, it's awful, it's completely the wrong colour." You can then spend an afternoon repainting the outside and it's all better. Someone else might say, "I love it, it's perfect, there's only one thing I would change--can you turn it round so it faces south instead of north?"

The reason I bring this up is I'm currently trying to edit a story, and have just stumbled over a very slight change that needs to be made... but which might well require picking up the whole damn house and turning it around. In essence, the first scene of this story takes place in the morning, at an art gallery, and then the story continues through the rest of the day and the events therein. This time factor is pretty much essential to the story (it wouldn't be feasible to, say, extend the narrative over an extra day). But it's just occurred to me that... why would anyone schedule a wine-and-canapes reception for the opening of a new installation at an art gallery, first thing in the morning?

It's a really daft point that completely escaped my attention up until this moment. And it's easily enough fixed--nothing more than changing the word "morning" to "evening" on the first page. But that little change is going to have an impact on the rest of the story. Instead of taking place over the course of a day, concluding in the evening, it would have to take place during the night and conclude early the following morning.

Doesn't sound like a bit problem, does it? After the art gallery, the character goes to a market. Would said market still be open in the evening? Whilst there, he meets a couple of auxiliary characters, including a pair of young children. Would they still be awake and out of bed at that time of the day? Would the subsequent actions of the main character seem more or less suspicious if he's sneaking around at midnight rather than early afternoon? And so on.

Stupid little niggly problems, none of which are insurmountable but all of which are flipping annoying and will take more effort than expected to fix. Too many problems of that type can make you seriously consider just knocking down the whole stupid house and having done with it.

But, of course, there's always the possibility of a quick-fix... I've not found one yet, but I'm working on it. Sticking with the metaphor, there's a chance we can just take the front door and the back door off the hypothetical house and swap them over, which technically at least would mean the house is facing south instead of north...