200
61
Become a snatcher of time,
and maybe you’ll hit
700 books, too.
Isaac Asimov wrote more than 700 books. He had no
other life, of course (he admitted as much), but that’s
still quite a haul.
How’d he do it?
One thing he copped to was snatching time to peck
away at his typewriter. If he had a free fi fteen minutes be-
fore dinner, rather than use that in casual conversation or
watching the tube, or doing anything else for that matter,
he saw it as an opportunity to get some writing in.
He had several typewriters around his apartment,
each with a different project sitting in it. He’d pick one
and type for fi fteen minutes.
I like to snatch time. I’ve written a number of chap-
ters on an AlphaSmart Neo, a nifty little dedicated word
processor that fi res up in one second and runs forever on
AA batteries. For pure input of words, it’s a lot more con-
venient than a laptop. It weighs about a pound. I hardly
know I’m carrying it.
Use pads and pencils if you like, but fi nd ways to snatch
the occasional chunk of writing time. It all adds up.
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201
Just remember not to snatch so much time you be-
come a social pariah, an ingrate, or a hermit. “One may
achieve remarkable writerly success while fl unking all
the major criteria for success as a human being,” says
Michael Bishop. “Try not to do that.”
Try this exercise:
Print out a blank calendar of your typical week. Di-
vide it up by the hour as illustrated in the sample on
page 202.
Now, go through and darken every cell where you
have a daily obligation, as illustrated on page 203. (You
can do separate sheets for your weekends.)
You should see that there are many more blank cells
than dark ones.
These represent potential “snatch writing” times. Plan
for a few of these, just as you would an appointment.
Then be ready to take advantage of others that arise.
You will be amazed the rewards of this system.
If, in the midst of diffi culties, we are always ready
to seize an advantage, we may extricate ourselves
from misfortune.
—Sun Tzu
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202
weekly time sheet
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
6:00
7:0 0
8:00
9:00
10:00
11: 0 0
12:00
1:0 0
2:00
3:00
4:00
5:00
6:00
7:0 0
8:00
9:00
10:00
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203
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri
6:00
7:0 0
8:00
9:00
10:00
11: 0 0
12:00
1:0 0
2:00
3:00
4:00
5:00
6:00
7:0 0
8:00
9:00
10:00
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