Where to Find an Hour a Day to Write
Where to Find an Hour a Day to Write
It’s four o’clock in the morning, and I know this is my window, but I’m so tired, so I close my eyes and go back to sleep. By the time I wake up a few hours later, my preschooler is kneeing me in the kidneys, wanting to watch Paw Patrol, and I know my window has closed. What ensues next is a litany of endless demands for juice, television, stories, tee shirt removal, scooter rides, and more. I’ve worked from home since 2015, and despite my optimism, finding time for my writing has only gotten harder; yet, at 37, I’m more serious about writing than ever before, so carving out that precious hour—the recommended minimal timeframe for any professional writer—is do or die.
Is It Really That Hard to Write?
Like I said, when I started working from home in 2015, it became apparent that I was a terrible DYI boss. Though schedules are essential for my personality type, I never stuck to them because I preferred to do whatever felt natural moment-by-moment. While this was no doubt great for my chakras, it wasn’t so great for my writing because without planning, I simply didn’t write…unless I was on deadline or the coincidence of writing lined up with my internal stars.
This didn’t work for long because the discomfort of not writing was a real sock in the moonbeam. It was at this point that I took stock of what it really meant to be a work-at-home mom. In the past five years, I’ve worn all of these hats as full-time jobs…often simultaneously: mom, wife, caretaker, housekeeper, college professor, graduate student, writer, editor, and occasionally, storekeeper for my mom.
While I could make time for paid articles and projects (the mortgage company literally raises the roof when I do this), my time for creative writing dissolved into seconds flown by. Something had to give, and I wasn’t about to let it be my writing.
How to Defend Your Writing Time
I had to learn to both find (more on that in a second) and defend my writing and writing time. When I was a studio art major in undergrad, my drawing instructor lamented that her friends and family would call her at her Ocean Springs home (where she painted) and ask her to go to lunch, shopping, the movies…chat on the phone, whatever. To them, painting was a hobby, but for her…it was her job, and it wasn’t until she started treating her painting career like a job and not a hobby that her friends and family did too.
That stuck with me because as a creative, I have to that as well. Here are the ways I defend my writing time.
Treat your writing like a job. Remind yourself and others that writing isn’t a hobby; it’s your job. Even if you aren’t earning an income with it, it’s still a job, so no, you can’t just drop everything and meet Madge for coffee or hit up the park for an impromptu play date with Erica and her brood.
Prioritize your life and goals. I have a million-and-one things to do and a ton of hobbies, a major commitment to fitness, a passion for gardening, a love of reading, etc. Conduct a serious goals and priorities assessment and figure out where your time needs to go with writing occupying the numero uno spot.
Turn your phone volume off, and don’t check your e-mail until after you write. Those things can wait. Those distractions will gnaw at your subconscious until you address them and will distract you from writing.
Disconnect your computer from WiFi when writing. Researching your writing is not your writing time. Turning off WiFi will force you to write and not get distracted with research…or Facebook. I learned a long time ago that when I get stuck, the first thing I do is cruise the Facebook timeline. Next thing I know, it’s an hour later, my kids are screaming for a snack, and all I have to show for my precious time is a sad, mostly-empty Word document.
Where to Find an Hour a Day to Write
Defense really is the best offense, and these defensive tactics make it possible to use the hour a day you find to actually write. But where to find an hour? When I audited my schedule, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time in a 24-hour or 1,440-minute cycle that I had 60-minutes of uninterrupted time (barring sleep, and even that gets iffy). It was time to bring out the big guns.
Schedule your day and stick to it like glue. A schedule that you stick to ensures that you get an hour at the time of your choosing. If you’re a mom, schedule your kid’s time, too…whether it’s making your writing hour their nap time, their tablet time, or solo-play / reading time in their rooms.
Wake up early or go to bed late. If writing during the day isn’t working, grab an extra hour when everyone else is asleep (this is my strategy, and most days it works, but it requires self-care and solid sleep). If your hour is in the evening, skip the wine with dinner because if you’re like me, it just makes you sleepy, stupid, and lazy, and despite the axiom, you definitely shouldn’t write drunk.
Give your writing a deadline with daily goals. When I have a deadline for someone else, I’ll sit down and write even if the world is burning up around me. Giving yourself tangible writing goals that you adhere to ensures that things happen. Ex: Day 1: plot and outline; day 2: revise outline; day 3: freewriting…and so forth.
To make this work even more effectively, start slow. Begin with 15-minutes a day for a week, then build up to 20-minutes and so forth until you’ve got your hour (or more) of writing time.
It’s Easier Said Than Done, But…
Before I wrap up, I want to level with you. Bullet lists make everything seem easy and doable, but this is hard business. The discomfort of not writing or of never publishing or succeeding has to be more uncomfortable than anything else. More unpleasant than losing an hour of sleep or sticking to a rigid schedule or ditching your PM glug-glug habit.
Finding an hour a day to write is a legit mountain to climb, but baby, ain’t no mountain high enough to keep you from writing. Trust me that when you adhere these tactics to your life, in no time you’ll be able to grab your hour and write like the wind. Whoosh, baby.
Stories—our collective truths—are what make the world go around…they connect us regardless of where we are or what we’re doing. If you need help answering the question, “What’s your story?”, click the link to contact us, The Storyteller Agency for quality, voiceful written content.
Amy Delcambre, Storyteller
Author’s Bio:
Amy is a creative nonfiction writer and editor with over a decade of professional writing and editing experience in technical writing, content marketing, travel writing, memoir and creative nonfiction essay writing, and contemporary fiction. She has worked for multiple companies including The Storyteller Agency, Vertical Measures, Compass Media, and Madden Media to name a few. Amy’s writing has been published on countless websites and in various collections.
Amy serves as co-president for the Mobile Writers Guild and as a member-at-large for the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA). Amy is also a member of the Authors Guild, the ACES: The Society for Editing, and the Alabama Writers’ Conclave. In addition to her writing activities Amy is a part-time professor of English for the University of South Alabama and for the University of Phoenix Online. She routinely teaches courses in literature, composition, writing for social media, fiction writing, and creative nonfiction. Amy holds a Master’s in creative writing from the University of South Alabama and in publishing from George Washington University.
Amy is a work-at-home widowed mom of three young daughters and one angel son. Much of Amy’s writing revolves around the chaos, confusion, and crocodile tears of navigating work and child-rearing as a solo act; however, Amy remains eternally optimistic about life and the beauty of this world as she processes her grief and helps her daughters navigate theirs.
When she isn’t writing, Amy is an avid outdoor fitness enthusiast. She loves running, biking, swimming, and kayaking and engages in at least one of those activities every day. Amy is also a passionate home cook and culinary gardener. Like most writers, Amy is a reader who gets her literary fix on the fly through audiobooks, which she listens to while cooking, cleaning, exercising, folding endless piles of laundry...whatever it takes. Like most work-at-home moms, Amy is trying to strike the right balance between slowing down and taking it easy, and “having it all”. The results are entertaining if nothing else.
Read more of Amy’s writing at:
Her personal website, www.amydelcambre.ink
Her website dedicated to processing losing her son: www.letterstojude.com
Her editing website, www.creativeeditingservices.com
Follow Amy on Facebook @amysdwriter and @creativeeditingservices and @travelingwithstories.
Follow Amy on Instagram @amy.s.d_writer and @travelingwithstories and @creativeeditingservices
