Writers — or so my wife says — like to complain.  We complain about slow magazine response times.  We complain about editors.  We complain about writer’s block.  Maybe more than anything else, we complain about time … or lack thereof.  One of the questions I hear over and over again is, “How do you make time to write?”  Today I thought I’d take a few minutes to address one of the most vicious time-killers around — the new fall television season. We all have our favorite shows, and some of those new programs look like they might be fun.  But if you aren’t careful, you’ll be spending even more time in front of ye old idiot box.  That mean’s you’ll have even less time to exercise your typing fingers.  And that means you’ll complain to your spouse about it even more frequently.  Growing weary of your sniveling, he or she will leave you, taking half or more of your precious fortune, leaving you in the gutter to lead a sad, meaningless existence until you die of some insidious infection. So really I’m saving your life.Here are a few tips to help you avoid an untimely demise at the hands of your big screen.  Take what you will and leave the rest.1 – Ration your TV time.  Pick a certain number of shows to watch.  Say, five or six.  Don’t watch anything else.  You get to enjoy the best of the best and forget everything else.2 – Set up a specific time (and place) to write and stick to it.  Even an hour a day will work (although two would be even better).  Find a nice, quiet place away from the TV.  Put on headphones so you can’t hear your family members watching Manimal in the other room.  If you really have no willpower and you’re able to do so, consider staying late at work (off the clock, of course) to write after your co-workers have left for the day.  Like pudding after veggies, don’t reward yourself with the TV unless you’ve done your writing. 3 - Trim the fat.  Get yourself a DVR, Tivo, or good old-fashioned VCR and start taping your favorite shows.  After you’re done writing, watch them and skip the commercials.  Let’s say an hour show has fifteen minutes of commercials (sometimes more than that).  If you skip the ads on just two shows a night, you earn yourself an extra thirty minutes.4 – Wait a week.  Don’t watch all those recorded shows right away.  Let them ferment for a few days.  You’ll be surprised how many of them you decide to delete without watching.5 - Don’t be afraid of spoilers.  I hate spoilers as much as the next person, but if someone tells me the big surprise ending of last night’s episode of Small Wonder, I’m probably not going to bother watching it.  They deserve a medal for contributing to my success as a writer.6 – For pity’s sake, stop watching bad TV.  I’m not commenting on the quality of the shows you watch.  I like a lot of shows other people consider really, really bad.  If you love it, that’s good enough for me.  But I know a lot of folks who say things like, “I used to love Charles in Charge, but it hasn’t been nearly as good since they changed the character’s motivation.  I still watch it, though, out of habit.”  It’s almost like some strange collector mentality.  You’ve watched one episode and now you must watch them all.  If you don’t love it, skip it.  The world will keep turning.7 – Cut the cord.  Or the cable as the case may be.  I know many very productive people who have managed (without loss of sanity) to get by just fine without cable or satellite.  In some cases, they don’t even have TVs. Give any (or all) of these ideas a try.  Maybe they’ll help you navigate the minefield of new fall programming.  Let me know if you have any additional suggestions!