Not everyone has the luxury of being able to write full time. Even full-time writers can’t write full time. Life interferes. The key for you, as a writer, is to make sure you don’t let those interferences keep you from writing. I have a couple tips to help you do just that.
1. Prioritize Your Writing
Yes, you need to eat, sleep, take care of your children and your house, and even work at a job. This prioritizing is a matter of mental focus. Keep something handy for jotting down your bits of dialogue, character descriptions, plot ideas, etc. You could use a little notepad and pen, or you could go high-tech and use an app on your smart phone. There are also little hand-held recorders into which you can speak your ideas and type them up later when you have time.
Making your writing a high priority in your life can help you decide whether to go out on the town with friends, take that vacation to Spain, etc., or stay home writing. Once you have decided that writing is more important to you than that other activity, you will be staying home typing up those ideas and coming up with more. Writing can be a lonely business sometimes.
2. Deal with Life’s “Issues” as Quickly as Possible
You have to take care of certain things at certain times, such as filing your taxes before the April deadline, making that annual visit to the eye doctor, or seeing your children through their sports activities. And other things pop up unexpectedly, such as getting a notice that your private information was part of a data breach and you now have to scramble to notify your credit card companies and bank, or you and your family coming down with seasonal illnesses (colds, flu, etc.). That’s life. But it doesn’t have to keep you from writing. It might even be something you can work into your fiction.
Planning helps speed those non-writing things up (and helps with accuracy, too). You can use tax software to simplify preparing your tax return or go to one of those tax return firms. You can plan for that trip to the eye doctor, staying up a bit later the night before and the night after to get in that extra writing time. As for the kids’ sports activities, see the first tip.
Bottom Line
If you want to be a writer, you have to make writing the first priority in your life. Even when life interferes, minimize that impact by getting back to writing as soon as you can. Jot notes, record ideas wherever you can, and keep writing, writing, writing!
Hope you found this helpful and have been inspired to start and/or continue writing!
Please check out my WIPs. And thanks for reading.
Disclaimer: I get no compensation for links in this post or on my site to other sites and/or products.
A.C. Cargill, Author 