Some writers have a specified ‘writing time’ every day where they can sit down in peace and quiet and write.

I’ve had to adapt this approach to fit my lifestyle. My method is more ‘writing on the run’. I have a laptop which I grab and use on the couch, on the kitchen counter, on my bed, on the upstairs hallway floor so I can keep an eye on the boys when they’re having a bath. I can write for five minutes, ten minutes, twelve minutes, or..gasp! forty-five minutes depending on the needs of my family and my own writing mind-zone.

(Case in point, as I was writing that last sentence I had to pause in the middle of it because my son, who is working on a craft, said: ‘I need some sticky tape’).

I have decided that disruption is good thing; it just proves how much super-focus power I have. Every time I return from a break, return from a break, return again from a break, I reaffirm my writing commitment, my desire to be there, my interest, the importance of what I’m doing for myself, because instead of saying ‘too heck with this, I’m going to go make myself a sandwich’, I’m saying ‘I’m going to write this novel even if I’m interrupted a million times!’.

So there.