I’m still working on my talk about fitting writing into our busy lives. If you are a writer with a day job that requires you to get up and leave the house for hours every day, would you mind weighing in on a few questions?
The big question is how do you manage to write when you have to be away from home for 40 hours a week or more? Do you send yourself email and voice mails to remember things? Do you have stacks of Post-its and notecards that you have to gather up at the end of each week? Do you take lunch in your car so you can write for half an hour?
When you come home from work do you go right to your writing or do you have to wait until everyone is in bed?
Are you one of those early risers who can get up and write for an hour before they go to work?
Other than not enough hours in the day, what is the biggest struggle for you in trying to write when you also have a day job?
Thanks!
Writing While Working – I’m just now figuring out that balance, and I’m very interested in what you come up with.
I work 50-60 hours a week, but have a short commute, so that helps.
During the week – I write in bed on my laptop. Everything is via computer, (excerpts of online writing advice, outlines, phrases, character sketches) so I can have anything via email ready to go to a friend to get a quick opinion or share an idea.
On weekends, I write at home. Some people go someplace, but I work it into my day, and started setting aside blocks of time that are realistic.
Last night before falling asleep, a stream of scenes came to mind to merge the storyline, I groped around the dark, couldn’t find anything, so I grabbed my cell phone and sent myself a text message and in cryptic text-speak, listed the scenes, and then wrote them all down long-hand as soon as I got up this morning before their meaning was lost.
your last question, my biggest struggle –
there are 2:
1. wanting to write while I’m at work but there’s no downtime at work and we eat lunch at our desks
2. being exhausted from work and wanting to have more time to just be and rejuvenate so I can write – it’s possible, just takes discipline –
You eat at your desk – are you with other people or could you use that time to jot things down? My one highlight of my workday is lunch with a couple of friends at work. The food in the cafeteria is horrid but the people are great. I keep weighing not eating with them vs writing and the friends are winning. If I gave up lunch with them work would be 100% miserable instead of just 98%
The exhaustion gets me too. Lack of stamina and inability to focus. I get home at 3:30 and want to spend an hour just decompressing and I can’t. And my husband works from home a lot and even though he’s in his office, I can’t help but know there is someone else in the house.
Plus there’s my office – I just don’t feel bonded with it 100% yet. I should – it’s lovely – but the most important things are the keyboard and monitor. Getting old stinks.
If I ever figure out the balance thing I’ll be sure to let you know. 🙂 I think it is a matter of listening to everyone’s advice and pulling out bits that will work for you. And prioritizing things…which is not a strong point of mine. It seems the more time I have, the less I get done.
The cell phone is an interesting twist. I know my kids can text as fast as I can type.
You’re smart to set aside realistic blocks of time. I have trouble with the realistic part.
I have a day-job schedule with some flexibility, and I have one day off every other week. I also get all federal holidays, plus I’ve been there long enough that I get a decent amount of vacation time.
On day-job days, I do my day job while I’m at my day job. No personal writing during those hours. Then I come home, check my email and blogs, relax and eat dinner, ride my exercise bike and decompress. Sometime between 6:30 and 7:30, I head up to my writing office (aka the spare bedroom) for some quality writing time. I write until sometime between 9 and 10, usually quitting around 9:30 to spend time with my husband (with whom I also spend the dinner hour, of course).
I am a night person and that’s why my major writing time’s at night.
On non-day-job days, I have even more time to write. (Also to hike, my other major interest.) As I’ve described above, I now have a fair number of non-day-job days. But there are always choices you make. Our house is not what you would call neat and clean. I don’t spend much time shopping, and I never go clubbing or partying. I don’t have young children to raise. (My stepson is a teenager, and he’s not with us all the time.) My husband does most of the yardwork.
The bottom line is that writing is fun for me, and it’s also a spiritual necessity, and I make the time for it because I would be a miserable person otherwise.
I admire your ability to shut off your writing brain while you are at work. I can’t seem to do that. I’ll be working on a webpage for work and then this thought comes zinging out of the back of my head about how I can fix a scene and I have to write it down ASAP or I’ll forget it. At the end of each workday I have to track down all the scraps of paper.
I’m a night person too so the getting up at 5am to go to the dayjob is tough for my schedule. I come home and I’m so tired from being up early yet my creative brain wants me to stay up even later to write.
I gave up on the neat and clean and my husband let me. I should say “this” husband let me because it wasn’t always the case. But he said trading a cluttered house for my happiness was fine with him.
Thanks for chiming in.
I take a few notecards to work, each labeled with a scene or dialogue exchange. When I have a few minutes, I scribble down the the description or conversation. Later, I transfer it to the word processor.
At home, I have a computer on my laptop most of the time. My best writing time is when everyone else is in bed.
Yeah, I use notecards for jotting thoughts about scenes and characters at work too.
I try to write a little bit each day, usually before work, because I’m a morning person. I think it’s important to know if you’re a morning or night person and don’t try to write at the time it’s hardest!
And make the most of Saturday mornings, I say. I wake up early, and I get some writing done, and then I feel like I can get the other weekend stuff done.
I think you’re right, Lisa, to identify if you are a morning or a night person. Play to your strengths.
I’m a night person who gets up at 5am for the dayjob. It’s not my most creative time at all but I do find that I can jot down a few notes when I get to my desk at work and then let them simmer throughout the day.
Hey, good scrabble game! I don’t quite understand why it declared you the winner when I still had a letter left, but oh well! 🙂 It was fun!!
It was a fun game. Thanks for playing!
I used up all my letters – that’s why I won. Boy it was close.
Oh – so if I’d have figured out a way to use all my letters first and been ahead, I would have won? I think I just learned a rule I didn’t know before. thanks! 🙂
Yep! You want to be the first that is out of letters and has the highest score.
Also, whatever tiles you have left are deducted from your score….so if it is a close game, you don’t want to be stuck with a Q or a Z. 🙂
I only work part-time so I do have a lot of time, but…I do sometimes get up early to write even though I’m NOT a morning person. (My job doesn’t start until 11, but still…if you go to bed between 2 and 3, getting up at 9 to write when you COULD be in bed takes some mental effort.)
I think about plots and stuff all day at work.
Then I try to write when I get home, but I don’t always do it, and when the words just aren’t coming after an hour or so, I don’t force it…I try to make sure I make time to eat right (more energy!) and I take care of other stuff around the house when the writing won’t cooperate. (Note: my house is still a disaster.)
Do you find it hard going to work at 11? I swapped my hours years ago so I could go in early and get home early even though I’m a night person. But I fear if I went in later I’d waste the time in the morning and not write because I want my brain empty of dayjob stuff.
I made arrangements with my day job supervisor/co-workers to work four 10 hour days instead of 5/8s. This way, I get one week day to dedicate to my writing. It wasn’t easy, but I wrote a proposal, made it as convenient for my co-workers as possible, and I have to work my butt off on Thursdays to make up for my Wednesdays off. But, it’s worth it!
Yes, I e-mail myself…all the time. Little snippets of ideas, brief outlines, one word notes, etc. I keep a digital recorder with me so I can “talk to myself” on the way to and from work.
When I get home, I have familial duties that keep me pretty busy until at least after my son goes to bed. Then, I sometimes get to write. Mostly though, actual writing is reserved for the weekend or that fabulous Wednesday!
When I lived in New Orleans I worked 4/10s and it was nice having that 3 day weekend. But I was younger then and in better health. Now I want to just work 4/8s.
Susan,
I’m not working outside, but you might want to take a peek at Nadia Cornier’s blog this morning:
http://agentobvious.livejournal.com/2669.html
Becky
Thanks, Becky. This was my favorite line of the bunch:
“Please feel free to let go of guilt associated with not being perfect and being able to handle everything all on your own. I think that as people of the modern technology age we should take FULL advantage of automatic bill pay, grocery deliveries, laundry services and housekeepers. “
Oh, yeah!
Hi, Susan.
Great question. My situation might be even more unique, as I work as a copy editor at a publishing company. When we have downtime at work, using it to do anything personal is immensely frowned upon. I usually keep a steno pad next to me to jot down things that come to me while I am there. By the end of the day, I am often too burnt out from scrutinizing all day to write. I have Aidan on the weekends, and he commands my attention, so I try to designate Sunday afternoons as my writing times. I don’t have a laptop, so I have to sit at my desk in my apartment, which can be a pain with my obnoxious neighbors.
I haven’t been doing too well with the writing the past several months.