If you are like most poets and writers, you probably have to work a job — academic or otherwise — and you probably have friends, some sort of family, bills to pay and perhaps an unfair traffic ticket to handle.

Whatever your issues, you have to find the time to write. Writers constantly wonder about this issue. We talk about it over coffee, over beer, over bourbon, over the swimming pool and under milky clouds.

You’ve got fight for writing.

When I graduated from graduate school, I thought time would come down out of the sky and present itself to me. I’d think I’d write at the end of the day, after Friday, after dinner, after, after, after.

It’s funny how after took a long time to arrive. I wish I’d realized I had to fight for it.

Now I sneak for it. I sneak out — not really but it’s fun to say so — in the wee hours. Did you know Starbuck’s opens at 6:30 a.m. on Sundays? I had no idea people were alive at 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday. They are. They even have the audacity to come into the coffee shop when I am there.

After my first early-morning jaunt on a Sunday, I was hooked. I had to have more. I can only imagine the feeling was like tasting an addictive drug. I had to get away the following weekend.

On the third weekend, my novel was shaping up well. I had more poems written. I felt alive. I looked forward to my pre-dawn excursions. The bitter cold did not stop me. Unfair traffic tickets did not stop me. I kept going. I asked my husband about heading out before work on weekdays.

Try it and see.