If you ask me – the hardest thing about being a writer is working a full-time job while you’re getting started (and possibly forever). I’ve got both a full-time and a part-time job because I work in the nonprofit sector so I’m underpaid and I’m unwilling to fall into the “impovershed writer” stereotype. The thing is, when you’re working 60-hour weeks with literally no days off it’s incredibly hard to find the time to write. In the last month I’ve written all of one terrible poem and a few paragraphs on one of the novels. It’s bad. My new plan is to clear out a time for myself to write every evening (or every morning on the days I have a night shift at work). I’m also setting myself specific deadlines for when I have to have things completed (a chapter, a certain number of poems, a certain number of words etc.) and reward myself when I complete them. The other great idea I had is something that I did in college – carry a tiny notepad and pen in my pocket so I can write whenever I have an idea.
If you write, how do you do it? When do you find time? Do you have a set routine or is it more sporadic? If you do have a set routine, how do you make yourself stick to it?
I carry a notepad too because otherwise I forget my ideas by the time I can write them down. Sometimes I write small poems, quotes, whole pieces of stories or even just a few words to remind of something I wanted to write.
Also, I write in my head all the time. I tell myself stories while I’m walking some place, taking the metro, etc. The more I imagine scenarios, the more I want to write them down. Sometimes it gets frustrating though when I don’t have any time to do so!
I think it’s a good strategy