Twenty-five years later I was still at it, having progressed from paper and pencil in middle school, to the coveted Smith Corona electric typewriter in college, to a brand new WP-2200 Brother word processor in 1990. But with a new baby and a toddler, finding time to write took not only determination but tactical planning.
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday drop-off at the JCC preschool was 9am. This gave me three hours, more or less, in the early morning. Ten minutes to get back home; another fifteen or so to nurse my baby and lay him down for his morning nap; five minutes to make myself something to eat; and if all went as planned I could run upstairs and write for an hour and fifteen minutes before noon pick up. I was on a time clock.
I had set up a desk for myself in my bedroom. A row of books held up between two metal bookends, a pile of finished and unfinished manuscripts, a spiral notebook for ideas, and my daily writing journal covered every inch of the table top. I had a cork bulletin board propped up behind my word processor where I tacked notes, quotes, photos of my kids.
That day I made my favorite lunch, peanut butter and jelly on toast and a tall glass of chocolate milk. I knew exactly where my story needed to go and I was excited to start, but when I lifted my hands to the keyboard, my elbow knocked over my glass.
For a good second or two I watched in horror. The brown liquid soaked into the loose papers, raced toward the books, and threatened to drip off the side of the table and onto the white rug under my chair. By the time I finished yanking everything off the desk, sopping the chocolate milk up with a towel from the bathroom, and laying all my papers out on the floor to dry, I had, maybe, twenty minutes left before I had to bundle up my baby, buckle him into this car seat and race back to the JCC. I figured the best use of that time was to sit on the floor and cry.
That story is not a story. It’s an anecdote, a memory that was triggered. It might become a story one day, or it might be a scene in a book I haven’t yet written, or it may never be anything more than a writing exercise. 
Much the way practicing the piano can develop muscle memory in your fingers and swimming laps will, over time, become second nature, the more you write the more succinctly and eloquently you will be able to. Your mind will begin to “remember” and creating a small story in ten minutes becomes effortless. Not every time, of course, but more and more, and when it does, when the words flow and come together like poetry, it will feel like magic.
I am opening up two new workshops. Wednesday mornings from 9-10am and Monday evenings from 6:30 to 7:30pm. If you are interested in either day, or you want to hear about my editing and mentoring services, please don’t hesitate to contact me. And just to say, in 1998, I got my first Apple computer, a three-ton purple iMac, and I persevered another two years before finding the right editor and the right publishing house. Practice, baby.