How do you find time to write during hectic days?

[The Story Teller]

How do you find time to write when it seems that day after day you're continuously busy? Going to work, working at home, driving here and there, taking care of the kids or the everyday household noises in the background is a constant distraction. How do you find the time? Do you stay up very late at night or get up extremely early and then feel like a zombie for the rest of the day? Any ideas?

 

[Quint]

Good question! I'm going through this right now. I'm technically on vacation and seeing my parents for one of the two times of the year that this is possible, and between sightseeing, quality family time, and my brother needing the computer to write essays for his AP classes next fall, I'm having a very difficult time writing. I do stay up late and get up later, but that has its dangers as well--all my friends seem to be online at that time, and they're much more appealing right now.

I have a poster that motivates me to get back on track. It's called "Peter's Laws: The Creed of the Sociopathic Obsessive-Compulsive" and has fifteen rules on there, varying from "If it's worth doing, it's got to be done right now" to "Perfection is not optional" to "Multiple projects lead to multiple successes." These keep me going and get me restarted. It's like superstition with a rational basis! What could be better?

Unfortunately, I left said poster back at my regular house. I'm fucked.

 

[ronde]

I set aside a couple of hours before bed to write. The house is usually quieter by then, and I've managed to forget most of that awful work stuff that we all bring home with us. I seldom write into the wee hours, although I have gotten wrapped up in a story on more than one occasion. How long I write depends on how clear the story is in my mind, and how much of a "roll" I'm on. I try to confine my long sessions to the weekend, because my boss has a lack of understanding of the need to take naps during work hours.

 

[Imaginator]

I've found that working on a story in your mind rather than on paper can be done in between the events of the day, like when driving to work or eating lunch (as long as there's no one there to distract you) or walking to and from the store. Depending on how fast you can type, once you have the story down in your mind, then the actual writing takes very little time. Then after that, it's just the hours of editing, but that's mostly from reading what you've wrote and going over it in your mind again.

Also, it helps to jot down notes during the day. Jot them down on anything, napkins, back of receipts, envelopes, and keep them all in the same place, glove compartment, purse.

Just some ideas.

 

[its Leslie]

When you get an answer that genuinely works write it down, millions of writers the world over will pay a couple of bucks just to have the secret eh.
and hmmmm with just a few thousand authors paying hmmm 3 bucks each, thats a nice little profit eh

 

[bondage_philosopher]

I usually formulate my story in my mind so when I write it out, it all comes out smoothly. However, I find I write best late at night. The times I find myself writing the most are between 12-2,3, or even 4 if I become intensely engaged in my writing.

 

[Monazwx]

My tip, always carry paper and pencil with you, so that you can quickly jot down whatever comes to mind. Mnay of us have gaps within our day like lunch breaks or waiting for the kids to come to the car for pickup after school.

Here comes teh tricky part. Setting time aside to fully develop your ideas once you already have the basic outline. Find your most productive writing time and tell everyone to stay away, no phone calls, visits, nothing.

It's strict but it works.

 

[NoJo]

Time management

Sleep definitely gets sacrificed. I often go with less than five hours a night for a week. Eventually I zombie out at around 9:00 PM and sleep through to seven next morning, and start all over again.

My youngest kid is sitting with me watching a video right now, and with this going on I can write posts like this, but not work on my story. (Unless I wanted it to turn out like The Lion King).

I invested in a PDA, which has Microsoft Word on it, together with a nifty folding full-sized keyoard. This has given me almost a whole extra 90 minutes a day to write, on the train to and from work, once I got over the initial discomfort of worrying about fellow passengers reading my stuff over my shoulder as I wrote, (I set the font size tiny).

 

[Coolville]

writers write.

All the greats had daily word limits that simply had to be reached. Self-discipline is hard work. Hemingway had a measly 300 words a day and he often stopped mid-sentence once 300 words had been reached. On a bad day, of course.

Flaubert's word limit was 10,000 words a day. (schmuck)

My own is 1000 words a day and I've stuck to that for 17 years, through marriage, kids, divorce, and whatever modern life can chuck at you.

you want it bad enough, you do it.

 

[Whispersecret]

I agree with Coolville, but I don't have minimums.

If you want to write badly enough, you find the time. I feel the same way about reading. I know lots of people who say, "I just don't have time to read for fun." And I think, "Ha. I will ALWAYS have time to read (and write.)" It's just a matter of priority. I will always read for 15+ minutes a night before I go to bed. I pick up a book in the bathroom, even if it's only five minutes.

Here are my suggestions:
1. Turn off the TV. Once you get started watching a show, time gets away from you.

2. For a while I was waking up naturally at five o'clock, so I got up and wrote. The house was so quiet. That was usually a good chunk of writing time, but it was frustrating having to stop.

3. Have your story on the screen while you're futzing around at Literotica. If you're like me, you spend too much time here browsing the boards. If, while you're waiting for a window to load up, you switch back to your story, you'll find that sometimes you get so caught up in writing that you forget you were reading the bulletin board. At least, that's what happened to me. I got a lot done with that method. Of course, I don't have DSL.

4. If your kids are engaged in afterschool sports, take a pad of paper with you and write while they're at practice. I got a lot of writing done at T-ball in the spring and swim practice this summer. If I was consistent and productive, that was five hours a week (one hour for t-ball.)

I guess you just have to take what you can get and grab the rest. The main hurdle most people have to get past is finding the motivation to put other stuff aside and write. I battle that too, but I seem to be winning most of the time because my dream to be published in a big way is so strong now.

Best of luck! Hope this helps.

 

[The Story Teller]

Thanks to everyone who has posted in this thread. Your ideas have been extremely helpful. Several, like the one of writing waiting for the kids to get out of school, I have already done and will continue to do, as soon as it starts back up (sigh...I am counting the days.) Until then I will continue to steal 5 minutes here and there. Thanks again!

 

[fifi]

In the evening

In the evening, that's the time I can write my sex fics undisturbed