Setting Aside Time to Write

 

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As someone who spends Monday through Friday setting aside time for Twisted Dreams Press as well as working on anything related to the newsletter and reading books I am reviewing, it can be a struggle to find the time to work on my own writing: Books, short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and anything else my creativity comes up with.

 

But the thing of it is, we don’t really find the time for the important things in our lives. We MAKE the time for them.

 

So, at the end of the day, even if I’m tired or physically drained, I still made time to get some writing done this week. I have reviewed all the work I have got done this week (so far!) and I was happy to see that, in spite of everything else I had to do, I still made time to work on my own writing.

 

I am currently revising a short story and I got some VERY helpful feedback from a reader on things to add to this story, so I have been working on making those additions.

 

I have been revising my book, 365 Tips for Writers, because it is currently out of print, but I am at the stage where I am not only revising it, but adding more to it as well. This is necessary in order to make the new format of this book work. So, I made time to get some writing done for this book as well.

 

And of course, I’ve worked on the two articles I needed to finish writing this week. One is finished and sent off to the editor. The other one is almost done; I hope to complete it by Sunday, 3/29. I made time to write in these articles as well. And even on those days, I also got some writing done in one of my WIPs (I am working on several books) or something of my own to write (such as poetry!).

 

I have noticed that some people who work in publishing have said that they feel guilty if they set aside time for their own writing. I think this is nothing to feel guilty about. If you are a writer, you owe it to yourself to set aside time to write. Don’t give your whole time to the job in publishing. It is not the only thing that you are. You are also a writer, and you are doing yourself a disservice if you don’t set aside time to write. Just as you are also a student or spouse or parent, etc. You need to manage your time so that you are able to have a slot of time for each of the things that are a part of your life.

 

This is why I stick to “business hours” with the press – well, usually. Last night, for instance, I remembered an anthology we plan to announce an open call for in the near future, so last night, I emailed a writer who submitted a story for an anthology that wasn’t right for it to let him know about this project, and ask if he wanted a spot in it. I wanted to do this before I forgot to do this (again!). But usually, yes, I stick to “business hours” with the press. Once I am done for the day, I am done. And THEN I can focus on my own stuff.

 

Having business hours and sticking to them is the key to being able to still do other things with your life when it comes to a job or career. Don’t let your job in publishing take up all of your time during the workday. By sticking to business hours, there is no reason to feel guilty about spending time working on your own writing. If you are a writer, you need to write.

 

And you need to make that time to write, too. If you only have five minutes to write, then use that five minutes to write. That’s what I did this week no matter how busy it was and you should try to do that too. It is YOUR time to manage and figure out how to spend it.

 

If you are able to spend your free time writing, then write.

 

But some people will think, “Oh, I can’t concentrate on the writing right now” or “I don’t feel like writing.” But, maybe you can? And maybe you do? Try it. Try writing something in a journal, write a few sentences in your WIP or try writing some notes for a piece you need to write.

 

I did, and I feel a lot better that I still got some writing done every day this week. Any week that I am able to write every day is certainly a good one, so make it a good week for yourself too when it’s Monday again and get writing. 

 

Remember, what you write doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be written.

Sometimes, You Just Have to Start Over

 

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Writers tend to invest a lot of time and hard work into their projects. They’ll spend hours and days working on that article, short story, or book, even if it seems to be going nowhere.

 

Writers tend to be stubborn, so when it comes to something they are writing that appears to be impossible or useless to write, they’ll roll up their sleeves and give it their best effort. They actually LIKE the idea of something appearing to be impossible to write, because then they can say that THEY wrote it. THEY got the job done.

 

So it’s understandable that, when upon realizing that it’s time to abandon a project, the writer will have a hard time doing so. They just DON’T want to give up on it. Not yet, anyway.

 

That was my situation this week. And for me, abandoning the writing project I was spending ALL of that time working on was an easy thing to do – because I have deadlines to meet!

 

I have been spending time this month working on two different articles for two publications. One of them is for my column writing gig. With both articles, I really had a hard time getting them written.

 

With one article, I couldn’t find sufficient information to make the article work.

 

For the other article, I couldn’t figure out the slant. I knew WHAT I wanted to write about, but I had to figure out HOW to write about it.

 

So I spent a lot of time this month trying to make those articles work. I kept up with my research and looked into other articles on this topic.

 

But all of that just wasn’t really going anywhere, and as my deadlines got closer, I knew I had to make a choice: Either keep up with it or ditch them and try something else.

 

In the end, I decided to ditch both articles. I didn’t delete them, because maybe I would have better luck with them later, but I decided that it was time to change things up a bit in order for me to turn my articles in on time.

 

My solution: Change the topic. I did this for both articles and immediately got to work on them (again!) with the focus on these new topics. Fortunately, these efforts have been more successful.

 

As to those articles I ditched, I figured that maybe the one that I could not get enough information for just needed to sit for a while. Maybe I will come across that information at a later time. There are always new publications popping up! With the other one, I decided on a slant for it, BUT that particular slant will require some time and money. I can just work on this article at leisure and send it to a different publication that I do not have deadlines with whenever it is ready.

 

This was not the first time I have had to abandon a writing project and start over again. I have had to do this with poems, short stories, essays, and even whole books. In fact, my novels Shadow of Samhain and Faded Reflection were rewritten several times before I felt they were “just right” and sent them out. With a short story that reached a dead end, I decided that since the deadline for my submission was fast approaching, I needed to put that one on hold and write a different story entirely for that particular anthology.

 

If a writer is struggling with a WIP, one of the solutions to getting out of that struggle is to just put it away for a while. Another solution is to abandon it entirely and start over.

 

Starting from the beginning really isn’t so bad. It may seem frustrating to have to start over, especially after investing so much time and effort into trying to write or revise something, but if the current method to get the job done isn’t working, starting over is usually the best thing to do.

 

Sometimes, abandoning a project and starting over again is just the thing needed in order to be successful with that attempt to write the thing the writer was unable to write before. A fresh start can offer a fresh perspective and new ideas, so consider giving it a try the next time you are struggling to write or revise your work-in-progress.

Writing Goals and Weekly Goals

 

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At the beginning of the year, most writers come up with one or more writing goals for them to accomplish in the new year. I’m one of those writers, but sometimes, I will create a weekly goal for myself as well. These weekly goals don’t happen every week; just when there is a reason for them to happen.

 

Like this week. I usually have just ONE weekly goal, but this week, I had two.

 

I have a short story that I wrote some time ago which I wanted to submit to an anthology call. That deadline was coming up, so I knew I needed to spend some time revising that short story so that I could submit it in time. I decided that my weekly goal for this week would be to complete revisions on this short story.

 

I started working on the revisions for this short story on Monday and, because I worked on it every day, I finished the revisions on Friday. I was happy with this new draft of the story, so I considered the revision stage for it complete. After I fixed it up and gave it a final read, I submitted it and the story was accepted for that anthology. Yay! Not only was I happy to complete revisions on that short story and achieve one of my goals for the week, but I was also happy that the story was accepted.

 

My second weekly goal was to fill in all of the boxes for this week in my planner. To give you an idea of what that means, here is a random page with all of those boxes.

 

This may not seem like a VERY important goal to anyone, but it was important to me. After I had two VERY productive days of filling in those boxes at the beginning of the week, I decided, why not take on the challenge to fill in all of them for the whole week? So I did.

 

And I totally SMASHED it! 

 

 I’m so happy that I was able to achieve that goal this week. There were a few rejections, but also a few acceptances. Yes, those extra things may have been more of replacers and not so much a show of what other work I did on those days, but they ARE a part of my workday all the same, so they still count.

 

Having a writing goal for the year is great, but weekly goals can really help strengthen a yearly writing goal as well. Even so, my weekly goals sometimes hinge on deadlines and what needs to be done NOW. Writers can use weekly goals to help them achieve their yearly goal, or do what I do and use them to meet deadlines, complete activity on a writing project, or keep the writing going strong.