Time Spent Writing
Transcript
Susan Meyer: In an average work week, I probably spend forty to fifty percent of my time writing. I usually work at home when I write. I can't write very well with the kind of interruption of flow that I have at work. I have my boss trained that I work at home a lot and that's how I get a lot of writing done. But it’s major. It's a major chunk of my job, and it's the meaningful chunk. In science, if you don't get to that stage, you might as well not have done it. You have to publish it or it never happened. You're throwing your pebbles on the pile of knowledge, very important.
Fidel Montero: There’s different settings where I am writing on a daily basis. I spend about 35% of my work week focusing on writing.
James Christensen: I spend as little time writing as possible. But I would still say I probably spend 20% of my professional life in front of a computer writing emails connecting with people and doing research and getting information down for myself.
Claudia Laycock: It’s very hard to describe what percentage or to calculate what percentage of my time, I spend writing--it’ll depend on the week. I would say in a year’s time, I probably spend half of my time writing, researching, reviewing my writing and maybe half my time in court.
Abe Mills: If you took all of the time I spend doing my group and performing and all the things that kind of offshoot from that, I would say at least 10-15% of the time is spent writing. When you sing in a group, then all of a sudden, people want you to come speak to their youth. Just about the experiences that I’ve had being in the group and the places we’ve been and because of that you always end up having to write something—usually a presentation or like a five minute or even sometimes forty-five minute presentation.
Geoffrey Germane: It kind of varies, but if I were to average that over a year it might be something like 20 percent.
Terry Olson: You know, it’s almost half now. That is, my professional responsibilities include some administration and teaching of course, but writing is ever-present, ongoing, constant, and daily. Something that the more you do, the more you want to do it. Something where you begin to search for additional time to give to it because you take hold of it and as it starts to take shape you really want to get to the finished product: so at least half of my time.
Shanna Butler: I set aside one day a week where all I do is freelance. I try and leave all the house chores and everything behind and just do that on Fridays. It is very different working free lance than it was working at a magazine because there are no set deadlines- which is what makes it kind of hard. I have to set my own deadlines; I have to say, well, I have to finish this by this time so I can start working on something else. And if I don’t do that then I won’t get anything done. And so there are generally self imposed deadlines unless a magazine says we need this within a month or whatever it is or by next week.
Susan Black: I spend approximately 90% of my work week writing, but actually I spend my free time writing too. I can never remember going home without papers and without spending the greater part of the weekend in a writing pursuit. I have been at BYU 30 years and during those 30 years I have produced, I think 120 books and 150+ articles. I have pretty close to 90,000 pages in print.