For anyone who's interested, my novel in progress now has over 18,000 words. I'm full of passion for writing it, constantly thinking of ideas and twists for it, but finding time to write it is the difficult part.So, when do you find the time to write while working full-time?
Week nights? They're for relaxing by the telly with my lovely man or going out and doing stuff in one of the best cities in the world. And of course, one night a week I write this.
Saturdays? Are for watching football, shopping, housework and/or going out and doing stuff in one of the best cities in the world.
Sundays? At the moment, it's my only writing time. So while passion for writing rages on, progress is painfully slow.
I've thought about getting up an hour earlier during the week to sit and write before I shower and shovel Rice Krispies down and set off for work. It might be the only way.
7 comments:
I once asked an office colleague when he found time to do his writing (he had at least one published book and was working on another). He looked surprised and said "in the evenings, after work".
"Oh," I said, wondering when he found time for housework, then remembered he had a wife. :-).
Yes, there's housework to be done too, you're right. And blogging. Blogging has to be done. (Slaps self on hand and gets back to writing this instant).
I really wish I knew the answer to this one. I seem to have less and less time and energy with which to write (even though the ideas keep piling up). It's infuriating but I just don't know where to find the time. When I first get up I'm a zombie until I've had coffee but even if I get up REALLY early, wake myself up, do some writing, then go to work, I find that by 3 or 4 in the afternoon I'm ready to fall asleep and it's horrible. :( On regular days, by the time I've suffered the tube home and finally got through the door, all I want to do is eat and sleep pretty much. Bleh.
I cheat. I steal. I nick time when I'm at work... lunchbreaks, early mornings, quiet periods. I realize I'm lucky to have a job that "allows" me to do that but also know it's damn risky. But I cannot not write. It's the law of the jungle...
It's true, it is hard to fit it in with everything. I have lots of half-finished (well hardly half-started if truth be told) stories festering in the electronic folders of my PC. You just have to MAKE the time. One hour less an evening in front of the TV? Easier said than done eh?
Cut back on telly and shopping. Most of the successful published writers I know who also managed a home, family and job got up an hour or more earlier in the morning, and wrote in the solitary silence of a sleeping house. Noone can do it all - but if completing your book is a priority then it has to BE a priority.
(Incidentally, I have had eight books published under my own name and have ghosted three as commissions, but as a free lancer I could shift my work hours round.) Noone said it would be easy!
Thank you all for your comments. I think I need to be more selfish with my time in order to get more writing in. Easier said that done, though...
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