Pencil shavings of wisdom about Writing Time
Thoughts on navigating a busy and/or chaotic life as an artist
What even is time?
Yesterday I shared a thread on Twitter that has gone semi-viral (if 100,000 views and a few hundred retweets could be called that), but my main purpose for it was this Substack post. It’s about how to deal with not having much time to write — both practically and in an interior way. My main goal was to offer solidarity as much as advice, but both together are even better.
This post will be a slight expansion on it since I’m not relegated to communicating in bite-size pieces here. If you’d prefer the short version, you can find it here. It’s been so heartening to experience so many writers feeling “seen” by this on Twitter. I hope you might find it useful, too. Most of all, I hope you find…well, the time to do what you’re passionate about.
The value of time for creators, the terror of not having much
As authors, we talk about writing every day. A double meaning: We talk about “writing every day” and we talk about “writing” every day. But one of the vital aspects is often glossed over: the value of time. And so, a decade-plus into my rewarding, spirit-draining, glorious dream of being an author, here are my thin pencil shavings of wisdom about Writing Time.
Maybe the solidarity will help someone feel seen.
Free time is a luxury that feels taken for granted by many writers who have it (and this goes for many other art forms, though I’m focusing on authors here, partly because writing is such a solitary pursuit). For others, a demanding career, multiple jobs, family needs (such as kids or aging parents), and/or health restrictions (the whole range of mental/physical obstacles) can be exhausting and make it difficult to sit down and pursue our passions regularly, with the right energy and with consistency.
You might feel like hordes of writers are always online, posting, retweeting, publishing books nonstop, networking, sharing pictures and schedules from yet another convention every few months. You might worry that you can’t possibly make it in this industry.
You are not alone.
Some writers are able to treat writing like a career, and that dedicated time can open a lot of doors. Produce at a high rate, find success, produce at a high rate on the foundation of that success, grow success… The time-deficient can feel like they’re looking up a hill.
(And none of this is in any way meant as disparagement toward writers who have surplus time and freedom. There are so many obstacles for so many artists, and anyone’s struggle with any of those has genuine merit.)
There’s a viewpoint I see sometimes that goes, “If you want success badly enough, you’ll make it happen.” There’s some truth to that, but even though it’s often well-intentioned, it can belittle those with a lot of mental, physical, or logistical obstacles in their lives.
This can all create difficult feelings of inadequacy, guilt, pessimism…even shame. You 👏 shouldn’t 👏 be ashamed 👏 of that 👏. The world moves fast now. When you can’t move as fast as others do, racking up successes as they do, it’s natural to feel this way.
So what can you do?
If you have, say, just one shining hour a day for all your writing-related tasks (including the writing itself!) while the spouse watches the kids or on your office lunch break, the pressure can wither you. It can make you wonder why you should bother trying.
After all, once you start publishing, writing is about more than the actual words themselves. There are emails to answer. Submissions to manage. Self-editing to wrestle with. Edits from your editor. Social media promotion. Spending time on social media to connect with peers. Maintaining an author website. Researching the topic of your book. The list goes on, and time seems to shrink in the face of this mountain of logistical chores sitting next to chores you need to do around the house.
Here are some points I’ve found helpful. Your mileage may vary.
Avoid jealousy. Be happy for your peers, even if they’re able to write a lot more than you and spend more time online bonding with the community and promoting their work organically. Genuine joy helps your peers, but it also helps you. Even when it's hard, it’s important. They’ll feel good. You’ll feel good.
If quantity is difficult, embrace quality. Instead of stressing themed anthology submission calls or losing sleep during NaNoWriMo, write what you feel deeply connected to. At your own pace. Dig into what makes your voice and style unique. Instead of standing everywhere, stand out.
If you have limited social media time, don’t just promote your own work. Set aside time to share others’ news, links, etc. Write a few comments, show a little solidarity, congratulate some peers. In other words, be part of the community. As a result, your self-promotion will mean more to those who see it.
When you can, carve out slots in the week. These can be for writing, research, admin, Twitter, promo, edits. In an electronic magpie world, time management is hard. Structure can help. Ignore those “hustle” and “you should be writing” reminders; don't be defined by others' metrics. My hustle might necessarily look different than yours.
Conventions/workshops are a source of envy for many writers. Lots of authors have PTO/resource limitations, spend vacation time with family, have health restrictions, or live too far away. If you can manage one event every year or two, great! If not, try not to sweat it. Conventions bond you to your peers, and that alone can open doors. But they’re not entirely necessary. The internet has its cons, for sure, but communing with people all over the world is a huge pro.
Mental bandwidth is tricky when you don’t have a lot of free time. Practice self-care, be mindful, work low-commitment meditation/yoga into your day, ask for help when you need it, commiserate with peers. Be nice to yourself. Your mind is your story machine, and it’s also your *you* machine.
Don’t worry about writing every single day. This isn't for everyone, both in terms of preference and in terms of reality. Find the best way you can be productive and fulfilled — and tweak it until you're balanced as well as possible. That might be just two writing days a week.
You might have used your Writing Time to read this — I don’t take that lightly
My only hope is that it was time well spent. If you struggle with “butt in chair,” as the great Stephen King has described the first step of a productive writing routine, go easy on yourself. You are your own story with its own characters, and what’s important and necessary to you has great value, even if writing must often fall by the wayside.
A little personal context, using the novel I recently sold to a publisher. It’s 92,000 words long, and I wrote the first draft over the course of nine months. Not bad for a writer with a demanding day job that has no downtime! What worked for me personally was the following schedule every week: 1 hour of writing Monday through Friday, 3-4 hours on Saturday, and 0 hours on Sunday. I wanted one day away from writing each week, and I think it was really helpful for my brain.
Importantly, I tried to not beat myself up if I had a bad day or a bad week. And once I worked on that modest schedule for a while, embracing the lower commitment, I found that I was producing more during each writing window, and as George Costanza might say, yadda, yadda, yadda…I had a 90K novel in 3/4 of a year.
My brain can be a wasp’s nest of anxiety and doubt and confidence and love of language and despair and joy. Which is to say, if I can meet my writing goal, you can meet yours.
Even if your schedule looks nothing like mine.
If your dream is to be an author, only you can make it happen. BUT! Don’t ever feel like writers who have the luxury of time and resources are the ones who deserve it. You deserve it just as much as they do. You might just have to want it and achieve it more strategically.
Much of this is common sense, of course, but common sense can slip between the cracks when there’s a lot going on and feelings of inadequacy grow heavy. It bears repeating: You are not alone.
To help prove it, feel free to share your routine/tips/thoughts in the comments. What helps you busy writers find time to write, maintain author personas, and persevere?
Whether you have a system that works or you’re caught in the amber of despair and wondering if you will ever find the balance, I wish you all the luck on your journey.
I am a big fan of the three sentences rule: no matter how busy or tired you are, you can just about always add three sentences to a work in progress.
I absolutely love supporting other writers and artists whose work I admire, and whose work I learn from. I think this place really stands out for being great about that.