It can be challenging at times to fit in writing with the rest of my life. I’ve got other obligations in life: my job, my family, and I can’t just neglect friends for months as I develop a story. Being social is a great way to take my mind off the characters and world that most of my attention is focused on crafting when I sit down to write.
So how do I balance writing with the rest of my life?
I do my best to accommodate for both so that I can publish new stories for you on an annual basis. The first thing I do is try to pick a slow time of the year to start writing a new story. For the latest book I’ve written (more information coming soon), I didn’t write page one until New Year’s Day. I’m usually back home from the prior night’s celebrating early in the afternoon, and looking to start the new year off right by being productive. It’s a good time to start writing for me because I’ve just been social the night before.
January is also a month that’s freezing, and when winter comes along, I tend to hibernate socially more than anything else. I only want to leave the house if I’ve got definite plans. There’s no, let’s meet up here and see if maybe so and so can get us into such and such. No way. Too cold for that shit. So starting in January gives me a solid month of writing where the only interruptions and events that are worth taking a break for.
The second thing I do to balance life with writing is the way I structure my writing, with my one page for day one, two pages on day two, etc. until the fifth day, when I start the cycle over again with writing one page. This will usually leave me ample time to fit my writing in with the rest of my life, because as I started to get on a roll writing the story, the time it takes me to write a page becomes more efficient, taking between 25-30 minutes to write.
Does half an hour seem doable to fit into your schedule to write?
By writing this way, the most time that I end up spending in a day writing is two hours. You’d be surprised how once you’ve developed a routine for your writing how easily it is to attain this, even with everything else you might have going on.