I have four months.

Sometimes I envy people who just write. They can get up in the morning, get in their writing, do the other things they need to do — write to agents and editors, work on publicity, etc. All the business of writing. They can focus on one thing. I, on the other hand, teach at a university, so I spend a lot of my time being a university professor. I plan for and teach classes (both discussions and lectures), grade essays and presentations, meet with students, and of course serve on committees. There are aspects of this job that I do all year round — the committees never go away, for example. But I’m exceptionally lucky in my teaching schedule. In my program, which I love, I teach for four months of the year in Boston, and then two more months in London. While I’m teaching, it’s an intense schedule, particularly in London — we teach an entire semester in that is essentially half a semester. There are days when I leave my London apartment at 8 a.m. and return home at 8 p.m. But I do love teaching.

The other six months of the year, my teaching work continues, but I’m not in classes or with students. That means I have time to do the other thing I’m supposed to be doing (according to me and the universe), which is write.

This year, I taught in Boston from January through April, then in London from May through June. July and August were complicated — there were other things I needed to take care of, family obligations I needed to fulfill. But now it’s September, and I have four months until I need to teach again. Now, it’s time to write.

The problem, of course, is that I’m not using to just writing. I’m not even sure how people who just write do it. So I need to create a writing life for myself, in which I both write and take care of the business of writing. That business is particularly important right now, because I have a short story collection coming out in November. Of course I’m nervous about it, because I don’t know what people will think or how it will be received. I suspect that people who like my writing will like it, and people who don’t like my writing won’t, which is about usual. But I’m tremendously proud of it, particularly because I really wanted Jo Walton to write the introduction, and she did, and I really wanted a cover by Catrin Welz-Stein, and I got that too, and on top of all that, I really wanted the publisher to be Tachyon Publications, which is a truly excellent press. And I got that as well. So this book is a kind of present to me — thank you, Seshat, goddess of writing.

So what should I do for the next four months? I have a goal, which is to finish the novel I’ve been working on. It’s a novel-length version of a short story I wrote many years ago called “Pip and the Fairies,” and if you’re curious, you can read the story online. I’m about halfway through the novel manuscript, and four months should be enough to finish. But of course I also have a short story collection to publicize, and various smaller projects to complete. I’ve promised a poem to one magazine, an essay to another. I will lead a workshop, give a talk, attend the World Fantasy Convention. And of course, I still have teaching work to do — I’m meeting a student later today to help with a scholarship application. And I would like to keep up a regular schedule of blogging, because this is important to me personally and intellectually — it’s only when I write about something that I know what I think about it.

(Someone once advised me not to write blog posts, and to put that energy into my short story and novel writing instead. I tried that, but got almost immediately blocked up, like a clogged sink. It turns out that blogging — putting my thoughts on screen — helps keep my writing pipes clear. I can get my random thoughts out, rant all I want to on my website or social media, and that allows the creative material to come through more clearly.)

When thinking about how to arrange my writing life, I went to the oracle: Ursula K. Le Guin. She famously once wrote that her ideal writing day included waking up at 5:30 a.m., eating breakfast at 6:15 a.m., and then starting to write at 7:15 a.m. She would write until lunchtime, and then the rest of the day would be taken up with reading, correspondence, housecleaning . . . I could not get up so early, because I don’t go to sleep at 8:00 p.m., as she seems to have done. But I think the central idea here is to choose a time of day that is your writing time, and then use it to write. I know, it sounds quite simple, but it’s harder to actually do — there are so many things that take our attention away from writing. Today, for example, my day started with a dental appointment. Even writers have to get their teeth cleaned.

I also looked up Stephen King’s writing routine, and found this quotation online: “I wake up. I eat breakfast. I walk about three and a half miles. I come back, I go out to my little office, where I’ve got a manuscript, and the last page that I was happy with is on top. I read that, and it’s like getting on a taxiway. I’m able to go through and revise it and put myself — click — back into that world, whatever it is. I don’t spend the day writing. I’ll maybe write fresh copy for two hours, and then I’ll go back and revise some of it and print what I like and then turn it off.”

It’s essentially the same idea: find a time to write, about four hours he says elsewhere, and then sit down and write. And do that every day, so it becomes a habit.

So that’s my plan, essentially. It’s very simple. I have four months, and my plan is to write every day, for at least two hours — and even better if I can get in three or four. And of course to take care of the business of writing, because I’m the one running this business, but I’m also the only one making this business run, and the convention hotel won’t reserve itself. If I’m lucky, with the teaching schedule I have now, I will have several months year to just focus on writing. I’ll still envy writers who can do it full-time. That’s a very different existence than the one I have. But I’m grateful for the time I do have, and if I use it well, I hope to create wonderful things. Praise Seshat.

(The image is a photograph of a relief of the goddess Seshat on the Amun Temple at Luxor, taken by Jon Bodsworth.)