How Much Time Do You Actually Spend Writing?

In many of the blogs that I follow and conversations that I've had with other writers, the topics of time management and marketing often come up. Obviously, even part-time freelancers need to put in a fair amount of time marketing ourselves and trying to get more work. With so many demands on our time that are equally important parts of the process--researching, emails to editors and sources, following up on queries, researching/developing/sending out new queries, etc. etc.--the question becomes: How much of your "writing time" is actually spent on the writing itself?

This wasn't a topic that I've spent a lot of time thinking about, but last week it occurred to me that I've been doing an awful lot of supplemental writing activities--mostly the things I just listed above--but besides my columns, I haven't been sitting down to wrestle with words and concepts for articles in a long time. That's when it dawned on me that all of those blogs that I read and writers that I talk to are right...there's a lot more to writing than writing. Once I start getting back into the regular flow of working on articles and hearing from more editors, I'm going to do a little experiment. I'm going to start keeping a log of how I spend my time on writing and related activities. Just for fun, why not try it? I bet we'll be amazed at the results!