Writing a book is something that is a lot of fun and has great reward-potential, but it also requires a good amount of time invested into it as a task. Between our busy lives with work and social obligations and our families, most people feel like they just never have enough time to write during the day. However, sometimes, it’s not necessarily our busy schedules but also sometimes things like boredom and procrastination that can affect our writing time. So, today’s post will explore how you can make time for writing a book, even if it feels like there’s no time during the day.
Is this your first book? Check out this post → 10 Things to Know Before Writing Your First Book
What Blocks Our Writing?
Before I start talking about my tips for making time to write, it’s important to understand what precisely blocks our writing and what exactly creates the sort of issue where we feel like we never have any time to write.
Time Constraints
Obviously, one of the biggest reasons why we feel like we never have time to write is because we feel like we can’t find the time throughout our day to write. Busy schedules often take away time from other things, leaving us at the end of the day with a few hours of time to ourselves. In this case, it can feel a bit difficult to take that free time and just dedicate it to writing a book. Furthermore, many aspiring writers also have families and social obligations, and it just makes it feel hard to make time to write with all of these things.
Procrastination
Procrastination is basically the practice of putting things off to the last minute. Procrastination is often heard of in association to school, but procrastination can be regarding anything so long as you’re pushing the work away and are refusing to do it in a timely manner. Oftentimes, procrastination can be exacerbated by distractions in our lives, like social media, household chores, and more.
Motivation
Since writing a book is a long-term commitment, staying motivated as you’re writing can seem really difficult sometimes. It’s easy to start strong, but you can also easily lose momentum as you’re writing, especially when you feel like there are obstacles in your way or that your progress has slowed down for some reason.
Perfectionism
One of the biggest struggles I see a lot of writers deal with (including myself) is 100% perfectionism. The feeling that no matter what you do, your work will never be good enough, the story is not what you want yet, etc… this is all basically perfectionism. This sort of thinking can lead to a lot of delays, endless revisions, and feeling reluctant to actually just publish your book already.
Tip 1: Set Clear Writing Goals
When you go to actually write your book, you want to be able to actually set clear writing goals so that you know precisely what it is that you’re writing, what you’re writing about, and what sort of thing you want to achieve.
You want to basically start by defining what your purpose for writing is. So, why are you actually writing a book? What is it about writing a book that means something to you? Is it for money? For fame? Just to get your story out there? Knowing this will help make the writing process make sense.
The next thing you want to think about is to set a deadline for your writing and use that as a sort of self-motivator for your writing goal. If you want to have a book written in a month or something like that–especially if you’re doing NaNoWriMo–then you’ll want to set that in a month from now, you want X number of words to be completed.
You also want to break the writing process down into smaller chunks so that it can feel manageable and fit within your writing goals. For instance, if you have a grimdark fantasy book that you’re writing (like mine) and you want to hit a minimum word count of 100,000, looking at the 100,000 word count can be extremely intimidating. Break that down into daily word counts, and 2,000 words or 3,000 words now sounds much nicer.
From there, you want to establish a word count goal that you want to achieve by the end of the day or the week or whatever time frame fits your schedule the most. For example, I have a goal of writing 1,000 words every day. This is a tangible, manageable goal within my schedule. That’s the sort of thought process that you want to have.
Tip 2: Form a Writing Schedule
I have heard from many people that one of the things they struggle with is actually figuring out how to achieve their goals because they feel like they don’t have the time to write or they’re not sure when they’re supposed to write. For the most part, it’s important to form a writing schedule because a schedule can make things feel more enforced and necessary to complete.
So, the first thing that you want to do is to identify the times of the day that you’re most productive in. For me, that’s literally 1-3 AM… for others it’s probably not that insane! Anyways, jokes aside, you want to find the time of the day that works for you and chunk that time out of the day to get your writing in.
If you can’t block that whole time period out, at least block out some of it. Maybe you have a lunch break at work and you feel like you get a lot of inspiration during that time, so you can probably use that for your writing!
Another thing I recommend under forming a writing schedule is to test out different times of the day and different lengths of time before you find the one that fits you the best. If you find that you can write best for 30 minutes in a day around 5 PM, then that’s a time you want to set aside. But if you do some experimenting and find that you can write for one hour around 10 PM, then that’s the time you want to pencil in for writing.
There is another tip I want to give here, which is the Pomodoro Technique. I personally used this when I was studying for final exams back in university. I don’t use this for my writing, but I think that if you struggle with staying on task with writing, then you definitely want to take a look into this technique. You set a timer for 25 to 30 minutes at a time and write without interruption until the timer goes off and you get a short break (about 5 minutes) and then repeat the process. This does help many people stay concentrated.
Do remember though that sometimes life gets in the way and you should allow yourself some room and the ability to be flexible about this point.
Tip 3: Minimize Distractions in Your Environment
I know that for some of us, it can be tempting to just reach for the phone and deadscroll through TikTok, but honestly, this is probably one of the biggest reasons why you aren’t getting your writing done and is probably a reason why you can’t find the want to be productive.
One of the things that I recommend is that you create a space in your home or you find a space where you feel the most inspired and can write distraction-free. Having a corner in your home where you just sit, write, and leave the distractions aside can be really helpful! Some people may not find that this works for them (I personally just write anywhere), but for others, this can be really impactful on their writing process.
The next thing that you want to do is to try and limit how much technology is around you. I personally love technology and what it’s done for the writing craft (I can’t really handwrite like I used to), but I admit that sometimes technology is very distracting and can make it harder to actually be productive. However, there are ways to eliminate this issue! I have a list of some great software out there for writers that offer distraction-free spaces to write books in, so check that post out.
There are also tools out there and methods that people use to focus on so that they can get their work done. Some people like to listen to music and others like to listen to white noise. I personally listen to music when I’m writing because the music sort of fades out in the background and provides me with an environment where outside stimuli can’t distract me from my work.
Tip 4: Keep Yourself Motivated
Another big tip I can give on making time for writing books is to definitely try to keep yourself motivated because a lack of motivation can be a big deciding factor in finishing a project of the scale of writing a book.
One thing you can do is to try and connect with other writers online and form writing groups. Writing groups are great ways to stay on-task and meet up with other people who share similar interests and motivations to you. It’s also nice to form connections with others early, which is why I encourage every author to have a social media, even if you don’t have a book that’s been published yet!
You should also make sure that you’re celebrating the little achievements that you make along the way, such as your first 10,000 words or the halfway point. You don’t need to just celebrate when you’ve actually finished writing your book!
I also recommend that if you enjoy journaling to keep a writing journal so that you can keep track of your writing progress. You can also use the journal to jot down quick ideas, notes, and more. If you want recommendations for some good journals, check out this post!
Tip 5: Try to Beat Perfectionism and Procrastination
When it comes to writing, you should try your best to forget about wanting to be perfect. You will never be perfect and you will always feel like you can change or improve something in your story. However, the thing is, you can’t keep thinking this way because this will hinder your ability to actually finish any of your stories. You need to put aside the idea of perfection and just aim to produce a good quality book without trying to be perfect.
Furthermore, procrastination and perfectionism often go hand-in-hand because our fears of not being perfect will lead us to delay our work and thus procrastinate on the work.
In terms of procrastination as well, there are many ways you can beat it. Namely, you can set a timer to remind you and sort of nudge you towards actually sitting down to get to writing. You can also try and break the task down into smaller steps and write in short writing session bursts before writing something longer. You also can try and use writing prompts to fuel some inspiration for you in case you feel like you aren’t sure what to write and that’s why you’re putting writing off. You can check out some of these writing prompt posts I’ve made:
- 100+ Mystery Prompts to Give You Writing Inspiration!
- 50+ Romantasy Writing Prompts to Start Your Next Story
- 100+ Fantasy Writing Prompts to Start Your Next Story
Conclusion
Writing a book can seem a bit difficult and at first, it’ll definitely feel a bit discouraging when you think about how long books really are. However, just because books are longer projects, it doesn’t mean that you have to treat it like it’s a long and daunting project to complete. Breaking things down, setting goals, and celebrating the small achievements made along the way are perfect methods for actually getting your work done and accomplishing your goals!
Before you head on out, be sure to check out my series, The Fallen Age Saga, and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter so you can get updates on all my latest posts, WIPs, book releases, and more!