Welcome Bonnie Milani and a Guest Post on "Finding Time to Write"

Bonnie Milani is the author of the "fast paced, well written" sci-fi novel, Home World.  When she's not creating fantastic, out-of-this world story-lines, you might be surprised to learn that Bonnie leads a down-to-Earth life as an Insurance Broker.  So, how does she find time to write with her busy schedule?  Read on.  (I'll be reading along, too, looking for tips to keep up with my own musings!)

Finding Time to Write

by Bonnie Milani

I can’t count the number of times I used to whine I could never find time to write.  I started out well enough, writing an environmental fairy tale for the NJ state department of education in college, earning my M.A. in print communications from Stanford.  After graduating, I freelanced feature articles for newspapers and magazines ranging from Mankind to Science Digest.  Then I got married.  Somehow, after that life always got in the way:  husband, job, housework, what-have-you.  I felt the self-betrayal every single day, felt that something in my spirit was out of kilter. Yet I didn’t write a word for nearly twenty years.

It wasn’t until my mother died that I finally realized I wouldn’t always have a ‘tomorrow’.  It still took me three years to get my heart and soul back together, but finally, on Labor Day 1994 I plunked myself in front of my first PC and started putting words down on a screen.  It wasn’t easy in any respect.  I worked as a pension / benefits administrator:  my work days ran from six a.m. to nine p.m.  Nights and week-ends I played cook or go-fer for my contractor-husband and his crews.  Housework I handled on a ‘if this is Tuesday, this must be the kitchen’ rotating schedule.  Finding time just wasn’t happening.  Worse, my husband thought I was crazy to waste time on anything as useless as writing stories.  Being the crew-boss type, he said so.  At length and at volume.

It was his complete and utter opposition to my need to tell stories that finally pushed me into accepting I was going to have to make time to write.  Initially during those hectic years, I set aside Saturday mornings from 7 a.m. (after I shooed him out the door) to 10 a.m. (when I had to start prepping the crew lunch and do the banking).  Eventually, I moved out of the admin world into insurance and started my own agency.  That put another 5-year gap in my writing; every waking moment went into building the business.  Eventually, I worked out a schedule that let me write for myself from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m.  I also started putting my MA to use by picking up a side job teaching writing at a local adult school.  That led to putting my shingle out as a freelance editor.  Eventually, I built up a writer’s group from my students who were serious about writing for publication. And, of course, I still ran my own insurance agency.  (Still do, for that matter.)  Didn’t get a lot of sleep, but I finally felt my soul start to heal.  The result – after many, many drafts and the wonderful guidance of generous authors like Mary Rosenblum – is Home World.

Long story short:  nobody ever finds time to write; we all make it.  Let me ask you: what’s your writing schedule?  What’s your story goal?   Are you aiming for publication?  When?  How many story pages a day do you need to get down to make your schedule?  Have you got a specific time and place already established?  Or do you always wind up feeling so guilty about all the other things you’re not doing that you give your time up?  OY do I know that feeling!  So here’s a suggestion:  set your writing time.  Then think of that time as sacred.  That’s YOUR TIME to worship the Lord by putting the gift He gave you to use.

Hope that helps!

Yes, it does! Thank you, Bonnie.  I think I'll copy your last paragraph and hang it next to my desk for inspiration to keep writing!  

About the Author: Bonnie vividly recalls the book that helped her decide she could out-write another writer: it was a junior reader's biography of Sir William Harvey, the 17th century English physician credited (in the West) with discovering how blood circulates. After about 30 pages of telling herself "I can write better than that!" she grabbed a crayon that just happened to be blue and started editing. She was all of seven years old at the time. Unfortunately for her juvenile bottom it was a library book. She followed the dream through college and after grad school, freelancing feature articles for newspapers along the East Coast. Milani even wrote a cover story forScience Digest! Alas, life and grown up responsibilities caught up with her and by her late twenties she put writing away with so many other dreams while she followed a ‘career track’. After losing her entire family, she realized story telling wasn't just a want but a need and a gift God gave her. So here she is, a self-declared “middle-aged pudge” working on getting back into a writer’s kind of real life!

Home World Website:http://www.homeworldthenovel.com/
Bonnie’s Email: bonnie.milani[at]yahoo[dot]com

Home World is a fast paced, well written story about the power and price of love. This story takes place amid the ruins of a post-apocalyptic Waikiki. Jezekiah Van Buren thinks he has found a way to restore Earth—Home World—to the other worlds of the human commonwealth. His goal is to restore his home to her lost glory.

Ingenious even by the standards of the genetically enhanced Great Family Van Buren, Jezekiah has achieved the impossible: he has arranged a treaty that will convert Earth's ancient enemies, the Lupans, to her most powerful allies. Not only will the treaty terms make Earth rich again, it will let him escape the Ring that condemns him to be Earth's next ruler. Best of all, the treaty leaves him free to marry Keiko Yakamoto, the Samurai-trained woman he loves. Everything’s set. All Jezekiah has to do is convince his xenophobic sister to accept the Lupan's alpha warlord in marriage.

Before, that is, the assassin she's put on his tail succeeds in killing him. Or the interstellar crime ring called Ho Tong succeed in raising another rebellion. Or before his ruling relatives on competing worlds manage to execute him for treason. But Jezekiah was bred for politics and trained to rule. He’s got it all under control. Until his Lupan warlord-partner reaches Earth. And suddenly these two most powerful men find themselves in love with the same woman. A woman who just may be the most deadly assassin of them all.

Paperback: 423 Pages
Publisher: Promontory Press
ISBN-10: 1927559235
ISBN-13: 978-1927559239
ASIN: B00FBK3NXU
Twitter hashtag: #HWorld

Home World is available as a print and e-book atAmazon.