How Often Should You Write?

What writing times work best for you?

How often should you write?

The advice write every day is excellent advice!

But not for everyone can stick to that, and it can be counter-productive to attempt something that doesn’t work with your current lifestyle. It’s depressing to feel you have failed, and totally unnecessary! 

Listen to the episode for practical advice for fitting in your writing time with your own personal circumstances... and still get your story done. :-)

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Write for a Reason podcast. My name is Janet Wilson. I'm a publisher of Christian fiction for young people with Dernier Publishing. If you're a Christian and new to writing stories for kids and teens, stay tuned for encouragement, creative writing tips, and actionable strategies you can implement immediately to become a better writer and get your books out into the world. Today we're going to be looking at numbers two and three in our creative writing tips for aspiring fiction writers series. So number two is write as often as you can. Number three is fix writing times in your calendar. So I'm putting these together because they kind of go together, it seems really sensible. The first one, let's have a look at that first. How often should you write? Well, we all lead completely different lives, don't we? So there's no fast and firm rule that says you have to write every day. Of course that's ideal if you can, and if you're a full-time writer, that's great. But with many of us, we have lots of other things to consider. Family, jobs, um, health considerations. Our homes need cleaning as well, don't they? Children, of course, and um perhaps elderly parents, so it's not that easy, is it, to try and find time for writing every day? And honestly, if that ends up being a stress, it can be counterproductive. But the ideal is to find out what works for you. So, how about you take a little bit of time and consider what would actually be the best thing for you? Bearing in mind that you probably have church meetings at various days of the week, or you have various responsibilities that are assigned to your calendar. So writing regularly is great. Uh, keeping going is much better than stopping and starting. So doing a whole load one week and then not doing very much the next week, you might find that the week after that you've got to go back and read over everything that you've written before you can even get back into it again. Whereas, of course, if you are writing every day or nearly every day, or maybe three times a week, you're keeping up with your plot and in between times you're thinking about it, of course, because it's still fresh on your mind. So here's what I suggest: work out a writing schedule that works for you. So you're writing regularly, but make sure that regularly fits in with your life as it is right now. If you can write every day, fabulous. If you can get up an hour before everybody else and you've got an hour's writing time or half an hour, or in the evening after the children have gone to bed, or maybe you have a lunch break and you can do half an hour in the lunch break, and a quarter of an hour on the train going home from work, or whatever it is that works for you. Maybe twice a week is more practical, maybe you can set aside Tuesday and Thursday evenings, maybe it has to be once a week and that's just about all you can do. Maybe even then you can keep your manuscript handy and have a look at it at odd moments, perhaps while the dinner is cooking, or you know the sort of thing I mean. I'm sure you can manage to get things sorted out so that you can keep going. The thing about it is if we have a plan, we're much more likely to stick to it. If it's part of our routine, if it's part of a daily or weekly habit, if it's part of our lives, we're much more likely to keep going and get that story done. And as you know, I will be saying it at the end again, but let's say it again here. If you've been called to write, someone's waiting for that story. So keeping going on it is a really good thing to do. Something else that I seriously suggest is that you schedule those times, those writing times, in your calendar. So if anyone says to you, Are you free to do such and such on such and such a day? you can say, Oh no, sorry, I'm busy. That might be your Tuesday and Thursday evening, for example, so I can't do Tuesdays and Thursdays because I'm writing. Now, not everybody will get it, but sometimes you just have to kind of stick to your guns. And of course there are times when you need to do something else instead of your writing times. If you can swap the days great, if you can't, hey, this is not a law. We are walking by grace, aren't we? Whatever works for you, keep doing that. Listen to your conscience, listen to the voice of the Lord speaking to you. You know, if there's something else that needs to be done that's important, visiting somebody who's not very well, or something has popped up, maybe it's even an anniversary or a celebration, by all means do whatever needs to be done. And sometimes it will be a sacrifice to stick to your writing times. When I was writing year 33, that is year 0033, and my pen name is JM Evans, just in case you wanted to look it up and buy yourself a copy, I spent an hour a day on it every evening after dinner. So of course there were days when we had people round and that wasn't possible, but pretty much every day of the week I would take my coffee into the office, stick on the computer, and I would write for a minimum of an hour. The dedication actually reads for my husband Andrew, who spent many evenings alone while I wrote this book. So of course it was a sacrifice for him as well, but he was happy for that. And it was all in a good cause. We've had some wonderful reviews of this book that has inspired young people in their walk with Jesus, and that's great. So if I can do it, you can do it too. That worked for me, different times for you. Now my book is out there with the potential to encourage and inspire readers all over the world in their faith, and yours can do the same if you keep going. If your story seems to be taking forever to write, and my goodness, sometimes they really do, don't they? Don't worry, just keep going. Every sentence, every paragraph, every chapter, it will get done in the end. You will reach there if you keep going. I do trust you found that helpful. Do feel free to get in touch. There is a contact form on the Write for a Reason website. And if you'd like lots more free creative writing tips, hop on over and have a look. Um, there's a whole bunch of writing tips there. You can also join our membership group if you'd like some encouragement, accountability, a bit of fun, working with other writers as you write. Um, there's a membership tab, do have a look. And if you haven't yet done my free course, Gripping Beginnings, you can sign up and start immediately, which will help you grip your readers in the very first page of your story. So don't put it on, folks. Today is a gift to use wisely. Only you can write your book. And if you've been called to write, someone is waiting for it.