From high on the library shelf it beckoned. The Thirty-Minute Writer: How to Write and Sell Short Pieces. Did it mean…? Oh, if I could learn to write in half an hour. Oh, if I could turn out an article or poem every 30 minutes. I couldn’t resist the challenge and stretched toward the book that could hold the answers to writing possibilities.
       In this book, Connie Emerson offered helpful formulae for many types of (Ding! Excuse me while I reset the timer and mark my ledger) marketable articles.
       Shorts, for example, need a 100-word lead with statistics; part one with an example should run 150 words; part 2 with example, 150 words; part 3 with example, 100 words; part 4 with example, 150 words; closing with sources, 100 words.
       Emerson also outlined op-eds, miniprofiles (3 sizes), inspirationals (3 kinds), the personal essay, interviews and many other types of articles.
       A section on analyzing the market contained a 9-point outline including length of articles, type of leads, amount of descriptive state setting, etc.
       None of this, of course, can be done in 30 minutes. The kicker is – and it worked for me – to write (read, revise, market, file, etc.) in 30-minute segments. Time seems more manageable this way, Emerson says. Tasks are not so formidable if done in smaller bites.
       When I had to leave my desk to take care of family/ work things, I jotted down the number of minutes left in the half hour on a sticky note. When I returned, I reset the timer at that point.
       Following this process, I logged 556 hours, which came out to be over three hours every day of the year. During the month of June, I spent an average of five and one-half hours per day on writing-related activities. Even with a four-year-old in the house.
       Seeing these numbers was proof of my commitment to write; it kept discouragement at bay. This article and its revision took about eight 30-minute segments.
       Connie Emerson’s The Thirty Minute Writer: How to Write and Sell Short Pieces was published in 1993 by Writer’s Digest. At that time, it changed the way I approached the writing process. Here’s hoping it will help you, too.
       Connie Emerson’s home page (via Amazon.com) provided these interesting facts. Her three-decade career as a freelance writer has produced more than a dozen non-fiction books as well as hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles. Specializing in travel writing, she has written for Woman’s Day, Gambling Times Magazine, Antique Trader Weekly and The Church Herald.
       Other interesting-sounding books of Emerson’s are The Cheapskate’s Guide to Branson, Missouri, and The Family Fun Guide to Las Vegas.
       Emerson lives for most of the year in Nevada, spending summers in Minnesota. She has also traveled in Mexico, Europe, Scandinavia, Australia and the Caribbean.
       Still, during those fifteen, twenty or thirty minutes of unexpected free time, I’ll bet she writes. Waiting in the drive-through lane at the bank, waiting for your schoolchild, taking a coffee break…. You and I can, too.