Yikes!

Just realised I hadn’t blogged today! Am fixing that right now. Time has just got away from me – was teaching this morning, then spent three hours planning lessons and another two hours catching up on other paperwork, and now I am hungry and I still have to do at least an hour of proper writing… So, yikes all around then.

What I want to know is, how do you fit writing in with your other work? It seems to me that you can be a full-time writer if your partner supports you, or you have some kind of independent means, or you are writing bestsellers. The rest of us need jobs. So how do you fit writing in? Get up early and do it before work? Stay up late? Sacrifice something else?

I try to write every day, even if I only manage 15 minutes. Some days, even that seems hard to achieve.

How about you?

3 Replies to “Yikes!”

  1. That’s a question I constantly wrestle with. For me it usually involves sacrificing sleep as I tend to stay up later than I should and write. But then I’ve always been the most creative late at night – I just never got out of the habit. And then when I have time off work, time that I should be really seriously writing, all I want to do is be lazy, or get outside into the fresh air, and then come midnight… writing.
    I’d like to think that I’d behave differently if I had each day to myself.

  2. It’s easier for me than some, although I have a full time contract. In previous jobs I’ve done fifty hour working weeks, so writing on top of a 37 hour week feels quite doable (provided I’m in good health, which is not always the case). I don’t have any dependents – I’m full of admiration for people who write with day jobs AND caring responsibilities. I also tell myself not to feel guilty over stuff like housework. Better to have a dirty house and get some writing done; which am I going to regret more in the long run?

    This doesn’t add up to the number of hours I could spend on writing if I were independently wealthy, but I could be in a worse situation. Finding the time to write is less of a problem for me than keeping my confidence up when I don’t improve as quickly as I want.

  3. My problem is that I am always having to choose between time and money! If I choose time, then I struggle with everyday living stuff. If I choose money, then I don’t have enough time to write. It’s a conundrum.

    Confidence and health are both issues for me too, and so I don’t always spend my free time writing, and I don’t feel able to sacrifice sleep for writing (or anything!) very often. But I still try to write every day, even if it’s not much. I have found that not writing for a few days can lead to weeks of despondency and a hard time starting again.

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