I was working as a technical editor at IBM on a long-term contract, with financial peace of mind for the first time in a long while & found myself waiting at the curb for my wife to drive up & pick me up after work every day, often waiting a half-hour or so past the scheduled pick-up time for her to arrive due to traffic & stuff. As my colleagues passed along the sidewalk headed to their cars & the inevitable Atlanta rush-hour traffic morass, I would usually whip out a magazine & while away the time until she got there, but one day I got out a notebook & started making some notes for a novel that I’d had on the back-burner way too long. Over the next few afternoon waits, I sketched out a rudimentary outline & characters & locals, which lit a fire. Over the next few months, I continued using the found time productively. Combined with some quality time alone on Sunday morning while my wife & daughter were at church (not my thing). I never did get the book published (still simmering, I guess), but I did get a draft in the hands of an editor whom I’d met, who had offered encouragement along the way, but who passed on the book (sent it too soon, in retrospect).

Another thing I’d recommend is a weekend or weeklong workshop away from daily routine. My wife, a yoga instructor, insisted I do a poetry workshop at the Omega Institute in Hudson Valley while she attended a week-long yoga workshop. Really got my juices flowing to wake up & engage with other writers struggling to find their way & get to meet poets like Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Billy Collins, Li Young Lee, and others. A week away from my personal routine & deadlines gave me new perspective.

I also am privileged to have a great poetry program in my own backyard. Ga Tech’s poetry workshops and readings by national poets are amazing. To sit around a room & workshop poems with some fine poets is another way to keep the spark alive!

I bike to work 5 miles each day & always keep a couple of small notebooks in my messenger bag. A regular a.m. stop at Starbucks led to a series of SB-inspired haiku, which I shared with three classes of middle-schoolers that year in a writer’s workshop in the schools where I volunteer each year. I whipped out the notebook from my bike bag & read them the SB haiku to illustrate how observing events around me & recording them is a big part of the writing process.

Sorry for the ramble, but maybe these are some ideas that will help. You are definitely on the right track. As my first serious mentor, Coleman Barks, wrote to me in a copy of The Juice that he gave me: “Keep on writing.”

BTW, I like your website design. That’s how I found your site. (smashingmag)

My best, Lee

I’m not really farmiliar with the workinghours in Canada, but if your life’s split between Sabine and work, you must be one heck of a busy guy I reckon Would you gain a few hours if you could reorganise your time?

Oh cool, when’s the marriage going to be? Congratulations in advance!
But that’s your biggest timeconsumer right there then, hehe. Organizing everything for the marriage is like a big black hole. Not matter how much time you put in it, it never seems enough. But pretty exciting stuff though… and way more interesting then writing if you ask me

I totally agree with you. I am one of those writers it seems that need constant poking and prodding. I love writing, but I also like feeling that my work has a purpose, and that there is someone interested in what I am writing.

The longest story I ever wrote was due to the constant badgering of a friend of mine for new pages day after day. I really enjoyed that type of writing, and haven’t found the sufficient motivation to make creative writing a priority, pretty much since then.

What’s a lunch break? lol… I eat at my computer working away. Also, I don’t get out much to see movies. My life is split between Work and Sabine (my soon to be wife). Doesn’t seem like there is any time for anything else.

Skip a movie sometimes.
That’ll leave you with one hour that you can totally relax (maybe watch Lost, Heroes or something instead?), and a full hour to write something.

Write in your lunchbreak
having a quick lunch, and then write for about 30 minutes usually helps me relax, compared to having an allout lunch at my breaks

I have to be honest though… I don’t actually write a whole lot. I tend to fill my time with designing and my girlfriend who lives waay to far away from me, hehe.