How do you find time to write?

That’s a good question….this is the biggest challenge (points to daughter). I think finding time to write, making a space in your week to write, there is lots of pressure on us to fill our time up with things that everybody thinks are important in the world, and a lot of people don’t think having time to write is that important. So I think for writers making time, making the commitment to say no, I’m not going to get so busy I can’t think, and fighting off all those things that clutter up our week, is probably one of the difficulties.

So how do you do that Glen, how do you strike that balance between sustaining the creativity and writing and the work?

I think I’ve become quite ruthless really, yeah, I just say no to lots of people. Saying no is great, I used to say yes all the time and that’s lovely, but saying no is wonderful, because after a while people don’t even ask you and that’s even better. But it’s not just saying no to opportunities either within medicine or elsewhere. I think it’s just really keeping your eyes on what it is you want to do, and it doesn’t have to be poetry, it might be anything, but its saying that this is what I want, and this is going to come way up there first, second, or third. And I think it’s not so much making that decision, but it’s keeping to that decision that’s hard.

Making it’s easy, we can all come up with those things, but it’s keeping to it, and its just everyday renewing the idea that no, this is most valuable for me to have time with this, or this, or this. But it’s the same as with a kid. It’s the same as saying no, I don’t want to be so busy that I don’t get to hang out with my daughter, or do stuff. Or it might be the same with studying towards a job that you are interested in, or doing a job, you might say you want to put time into that, it’s about, I think, being tough at the end of the day about where your boundaries are.