Have you ever been intimidated by another writer? Not their presence or their writing, but their commitment to the craft? It happened to me yesterday.

I picked up the last book in a series – The Books of Beginning – titled The Black Reckoning by John Stephens at the library. I like to read the author bio in the back of books to see what else they have written and get to know them a little. This ritual proved crushing.

I wish I never picked up his book nor turned to the back flap.

I was shocked by what I read.

On the dust jacket, it mentioned, casually, that John Stephens woke up at 4AM to write the Emerald Atlas (the first book in this series) before leaving for work each day. Wait. What?

4AM?

Really?

Imagine with me for a second if you could do this. Take that, multiply by seven, add another five hours for a writing night or long afternoon and that’s twenty hours of writing each week. How much could you write? How fast could you finish?

My first thought is that 4AM is impossible. I have two children that wake up through the night. But what if I could make it work for a week? A month? That would give me eighty hours of writing time.

I know this is probably not sustainable, but it makes me think. How dedicated am I to my books, blog, or any other area of my life? I want the easy path but I know I must choose the most difficult one at times.

How much time do you dedicate to writing? Is it enough? If you need more time, what could you cut out of your life to recapture the lost time?