Finding Time to Write - Aloha is Forever

When we started thinking in earnest about writing our book Aloha is Forever, we discovered that it was going to require a lot more focused time and energy than we had anticipated. After all, it was our story. We had lived it. We had all the e-mails and letters that had been sent during the search. We had our journals. What could possibly be difficult about just sitting down and writing?

We were in for a big surprise. Since there were two of us writing one book, it was a challenge not to overlap and repeat things that the other had written. But the challenge of writing together is the subject of another post.

Actually carving out time to write was our biggest challenge. We tried writing while traveling - that sort of worked because we were out of our normal routine and the constant daily demands upon our time.

What really worked well was having access to a vacation property. We began taking working vacations for the specific purpose of writing. It worked! Even though there was TV to distract, we agreed to take short breaks and watch a favorite program, but to spend the majority of our time on writing. There was no internet connection and no emergency surprises to take us away from our focus. It only took a few of these working vacations to get the book "done." Then several more to edit and re-edit.

In the process we discovered that we have several more books to write. Our goal for this year is to get at least one of them written. (My husband has the goal of getting 3 written, but I think that's biting off a bit more than we can chew!)