At some point in your writing career, whether you are a professional, amateur, or merely doing it as a hobby, you’ll hit the issue of getting enough time to write. Admittedly, if you are a professional, you’ve probably already dealt with this demon, conquered and slain it – or maybe not. If you haven’t, you’ll be losing income which isn’t a good idea.
Conquer the time thief
For those who have to work to pay the bills or have a family busy family life, getting time to write might seem a difficult task. There are many articles and blogs on this subject – try Googling ‘How to get time to write.
I’ll save you the pain of yet another in-depth analysis and top tips on how to make time to write. Instead, this post is merely a way of sharing what worked for me, and, as it turned out, it was quite a simple solution in the end.
If you did the Google I mentioned above, you’d undoubtedly come across petals of advice, like:
- Just sit down and write!
- Tell a fisherman to fish, or he won’t catch anything.
But a writer does need to be reminded sometimes of this straightforward fact.
If you don’t write, you won’t produce any writing; your book won’t write itself!
The problem many people seem to have, and I experience still to this day, is that voice in your head at the end of a long day:
“I’ve had a long hard day, it took ages to get the family settled, and now I’m tired and want to relax. I’ll do some writing tomorrow.”
Then, you’ll spend the next few hours watching Netflix or swiping endlessly on social media. At the end of the evening, you go to sleep and feel that little pinch of guilt that you could have actually done some writing after all, and you’ve just wasted another day of creativity. Sound familiar?
Breaking the Cycle
I took some time to think about what made writing such a chore. Why was it the last thing I wanted to do at the end of a hard day? I was trying to understand why doing something I enjoyed would be such a problem. I realised that I was the problem. In my head, I envisioned a mammoth writing session that would last for hours. I’d be up to the early hours churning many thousands of words.
I decided to turn the problem on its head. I promised myself I’d write for twenty minutes and then do the mind-numbing lazy stuff if I wanted to. However, I added the caveat that if I went past the allocated time, I would continue until a natural conclusion. No pressure. No deadlines.
The twenty minutes limit wasn’t a limit at all; it was a suggestion.
This method had a dramatic effect on my output. I found that I’d write a lot more often and regularly past the twenty minutes. Most of the time, once I got going and the creative juices started to flow, there was no stopping me. Time would seem to fly by, and I’d often work away until well past my typical bedtime. There were still days when the twenty minutes was enough, and on these days, I could switch on Netflix with the knowledge that I’d at least done a bit of writing today – better than better than nothing.
So next time you’ve got an hour or two before bed, which you’d usually fill with nothingness, try my advice. Don’t outface yourself; aim to do a little and see where it takes you.
Good luck!
Take care,
– Scrib
PJ Scribbans Author 