



Someone said to me the other day:





“I’d love to write a book but I just don’t have the time.”

“You don’t really want to write a book,” I replied. “You think you do, but you don’t.”

“No, really, I do!”

“You don’t, because if you did, you would.”

“No really, I work full time, and by the time I get home…”

“No, honestly,” I tried again. “If you really, and I mean really, wanted to write a book, you’d do it.

Even if it was just one minute a day, you’d do it. You would write that book.”





Now I understand, looking back at that conversation, that maybe I was being a little hard on someone who just wanted a little encouragement. But seriously, it drives me crazy when I hear people saying over and over at book events: “I’d love to write but…”





If you want to write.





Write.





There, it is that easy, just do it.





When all you have is a minute, do a minute’s worth of writing.





If you think about it, a book is just a collection of minutes spent thinking and typing. Sure there is love in there, sure there is inspiration, sure there is pain, frustration and probably a few tears and a lot of fears, but when you break it all down, chisel it away until you are left with the atoms and protons that lie in between the words on the page:





It is just a collection of minutes.





If you have a minute, write for a minute, or think for a minute, or plan for a minute, but use that minute to get to the end of your book.





Get writing, because you can do it.





Tony.





Tony Schumacher is the author of the John Rossett series of thrillers published worldwide by Harper Collins. He has written for the The Guardian newspaper, the Huffington Post and regularly contributes to the BBC and blogs worldwide. Wall Street Journal: "Schumacher assured and atmospheric writing makes this a memorable novel..." Lancashire Evening Post: "The British Lion is an extraordinary and exciting tour-de-force, a pulsating portrayal of a broken nation that is breathtakingly imagined and terrifying in the sheer power of its possibilities."











