There have been days in the not-too-recent past when words flowed through my head and sentences put themselves together like magic. I didn’t have to do anything, these lovely fragments of stories would just appear in my head without prompting. Usually I was in the car, and therefore couldn’t write them down, and by the time I reached my destination they were gone. But I love those little moments, when I feel like something is happening in my brain and that, if I just gave it some space and time, I’d be able to utilize that to great effect. But, of course, who has the time?

I have so many other priorities and commitments that it is hard to convince myself to put time to write anywhere near the top of that list. “I can do it tomorrow,” I tell myself. But tomorrow, or on my next day off, or eleven days from now, will lack that sense of magic or inspiration or joy at the very idea of a story that has me banging my steering wheel in excitement. How long can I hold on to the idea of a story? If inspiration strikes me on the way to work, by 5pm I’ve thought of a thousand other things and I am tired. ‘Maybe tomorrow…’

So, do you get up early and get words in beforehand? I find it incredibly difficult to get anything done when I know I’ll have somewhere to be in an hour, or two hours, or at some point later in my day. I have to keep watching the clock, panicking, can’t let myself get caught up in whatever it is I’m working on and lose track of time.

I like it best when I write until 2am or 4am. When I have the freedom to do that, it means I don’t have any obligations to consider. Because I have to keep an eye on the clock to make sure I get enough sleep to make sure I wake up in time to get to work. And then life just become a cycle of hours where I’m waiting for the next thing to happen.

Some people say you can’t force creativity. That you should just let it come to you. That when the story is ready, you’ll be able to write it. But what if my stories are ready while I’m driving to work? What if they’re waiting for me to give them time I don’t have?

There have been days in the even-more-recent past when no words came into my brain at all. When I had trouble forming a thought, much less stitching several sentences together. When it was all I could do to get myself to the things I absolutely needed to do - and everything else was left to wait, until a day I was more prepared to deal with them. That fog feels impossible to fight. Impossible to work through, so I can do the things that will leave me with time to write, in the not-too-distant future. Even more impossible to write in the present.

I don’t think most people can just wait for ‘it’ to come to them. How can you drop everything just in the moment your story is ready? But I don’t know yet how to allow that flood of words to overwhelm me only at the times when I have pen to paper, or fingers to keys. I’ve been trying to figure it out for years with no success. Anyone have tips on just how you can force creativity to fit into your schedule? Or how you can make your schedule flexible enough to be able to respond to stories when they come?