Hours in the day

My good friend Seumas Gallacher has sold a book or two (for that read tens of thousands!).  Now that hasn’t happened by accident. He’s put in the time and effort to make that work. Now here’s my issue with that. There are not enough hours in the day to do it. He is clearly a Time Lord.

And when I think of it he would make an excellent Doctor Who. Sure we have had Scottish Doctors in the past, but I don’t think we have had a kilt wearing Doctor before.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the hours in the day, Where do I start? Unfortunately, my work takes up the first part of my day (7 hours including travelling. I know, I know, part-timer. I’ve heard it all before). That leaves me 17 hours to do the things I need to do. I spend roughly an hour and half a day cooking, and another hour a day eating (average figure from t’internet. This does seem a little on the low side for me. The’ve never seen me eat). Thirty minutes a day is spent in the bathroom. We are now down to 14 hours.

Now as I am married, I spend about an hour a day listening to my wife unload her day. I don’t begrudge it (I daren’t, she’s Scottish too!)

I spend at least two hours a day answering emails, researching for the book and generally doing the things that need to be done in my non-postal world in Bahrain (we do have post, but it took them six weeks to deliver my special delivery to London – back to me in Bahrain. It never left the country!)

So where are we? Twelve hours. Out of that take the eight hours sleep that I’m supposed to have and we are down to four.  Two hours watching TV with my wife (I have to see her sometime in the day. Apparently it’s what married people do.) I now have two hours left to myself, to do all the marketing thingies I have to do. Oh – actually I don’t, because I am supposed to be writing my next book. So that leaves me zero hours, and that isn’t counting all the bits of time lost looking for things like keys and phones and things that aren’t where I left them (My wife calls it being tidy, I call it not knowing where things are).

Now I can, and do cut down on the sleep, because I read. Writers have to read otherwise they won’t know what works and what doesn’t.

So I have to ask Seumas frae Gallifrey. How on earth do you do it?