I apologize if this has been posted before, I couldn't find it initially. How do you plan your writing time? If you work, how do you plan that out? If you don't work, do you get up at 6am and begin writing and don't stop till 5pm? Let's go for both working people and non-working people.
Personally, for the story I'm working on currently, I used to write any chance I got, fumbling around ideas and writing off the top of my head. Now, since I have my entire plot and event list just about done... I'm down to about a paragraph a week. Slow, but I know where it's going.
Right now, it's the holidays so I usually write for most of the day, writing up to about a chapter per day. When the school year starts back, I try to write a little every evening and work hard at the weekend.
I work, but my work involves my writing. I usually get up and do some writing/emails/editing. Then I do more "work" type stuff. Depending on the day, I will write/edit in the afternoon and then try and get in a good long session in the evening at my favorite coffee shop. It is a very busy schedule, and I don't know if most people could handle it. You have to be very organized and time-conscious to make it work.
I have no schedule for writing. I just try to release a new episode to my readers every week with a few exceptions which I note in advance. I usually get pretty far ahead though so I take it as the inspiration comes.
I write completely depending on when I feel like writing, which for some reason has been early morning for a while. I never write if I don't feel like it since it affects my writing.
5:30 breakfast with the spousal unit where we brainstorm what project/s we will each be working on that day and set page count goals. (We are both freelance writers) 6:30 Typing in handwritten work from the day before. Break at 8:30 to go to gym 10:00 Head out to coffee shop/wafflehouse/IHOP/truck stop to get the day's writing done. I write until it feels like I'm done or my daily page goal is met -- depending on which comes last.
I stopped writing completely for a year due to personal reasons. I'm just now getting back into the swing of things. I don't have a set schedule. Right now, I'm mostly reading to get my brain thinking on the same creative wavelength as a professional writer. I work full time, but it's mostly doing translations, so in the meanwhile, I'll be writing ideas on a stenopad. I write vignettes on my breaktime (we get two fifteen breaks a day) using all those information. At lunch, I'm back to reading again. At home, I'm always totally exhausted, but I'll still force myself to sit at the computer and write. I'll walk away from the computer ocassionaly, go downstairs to grab a bite, hover back to the computer, pop in a DVD and watch, then back to the computer again. This is almost an everyday thing, unless we decide to go out to the movies or travel or something >>;
I'm sort of like StillLife. I used to write a lot and then go on breaks but then I realized that it's not helping me. Right now I'm trying to plan things out (the plot, at least) before penning things down. I have trouble with writing long pieces of writing because I don't know how to string scenes together. . .but I'm trying. Usually think about writing the whole day but don't end up writing for long. :/ I'm on summer break and even though I am taking a class, I do have loads of free time, I have no idea how I'm going to keep up with things once University starts.
My writing schedule is completely random; I simply write when I feel like it. When I get home from school or volleyball practice and feel like writing, I write. If I don't feeling like writing, I do something else. I know that most older writers have to plan out a writing schedule, especially if they want to publish their works, but I assume all younger writers are completely random.
i don't... when i have something to write, i sit down and write... i don't work for a living, but do have other work [writing and other stuff] that i do for the people here on tinian, as well as all those around the world whom i help with their writing and will email me throughout the day, every day... so, i'll just stop and do whatever needs to be done for them and then go back to my own stuff... i get up at 6 anyway... and work or whatever till there's no more to do... in my old life, when working on major writing projects of my own, i worked 18-20 hours non-stop for weeks... and forgot to eat, until someone brought me a meal... i certainly qualify as 'older' at 70, but have always been able to write anywhere, under just about any conditions, so never had to set any kind of schedule for myself...
I don't have a fixed schedule. Too many variables. However, I do make time to write. I just have to fit it in. Terry
I try to write on my free nights, when it's a lot quieter and easier to think. In the day, there's too much to do and I don't have the proper time to invest in my writing.
I don't like anyone (or anything) controlling my time, that icludes a "schedule", so I write when I feel like it.
I'm a home maker, so I'm lucky enough to have my husband supporting me while I write. My days are still pretty full though, since I have two toddlers (both in the middle of potty training). I'm also a full time college student, but I take all of my classes online, so school is pretty flexible. In the mornings, I usually get up a couple hours before the kids to do my writing/school/anything else I can't do once they're up. Then for a couple hours in the late afternoon while the kids are napping, I usually get a little more writing in. If, after all that, I haven't got as much writing done as I need to, I stay up late into the night working.
I work a minimum of 40 hours a week but usually it is more like 50 to 60. I try to write a little at night after work, sometimes just jotting down a scene that popped in my head during the day or editing previous work. I live for the weekends when I can write all day, in between all the other stuff that I put off all week like washing the clothes and spending time with my family. Once in awhile, I've been in the middle of a really good scene and couldn't walk away from it and I had to call in sick that day. I would have been sick if I'd had to walk away at the moment and go to work.) But whether I'm at the computer actually writing or at work or anywhere else, a lot of the time I still feel as if I'm writing, because I'm always running scenes through my head like in the car driving to work and coming home, during a boring business meeting, at lunch and on breaks, in the hallway at work when a boring colleague is droning on and on about the same stuff he droned about the day before... etc.
My schedule is random. I usually depends on when I get the idea or how I feel. If I'm not inspired or don't have any fuel to my imagination I don't write. But if I have the will and some ideas things can be typed up.
Same here, and I rarely put in more than a few hours a day. I admire people who can write to scedules and deadlines and word counts and the like, but it would be too strict for me. I sometimes have weeks where all i've written is a few quotes or ideas, but seem to get gluts of creativity too, so it evens out and I don't force it.
Yargh, that would be torture! I don't work (disabled), so... I don't really have a set time to write every day. One can sit and say they were at work writing for four hours when in fact most of that time was spent just sitting there staring at the screen, doodling around, not really writing. Instead I try for a set AMOUNT of writing, in my case around 10kb (about 1700 words). That way it might take me an hour, it might take me two, but I get the same amount of writing done. I usually do it after getting offline (late morning/early afternoon) but have been stalling lately because of a plot point that's sticking. Hope to get back to it soon. My schedule tends to gradually vary over time depending on various things (I used to be nocturnal and would do my writing around five in the morning, for example), but that's how it is for me. 10kb a day, whatever time. I limit myself to about 10kb because if I write until I run out of steam, then I'll have nowhere to pick up from. I used to write about 20kb daily until I kept finding myself stalling out when trying to get started the next day. I'm surprised how many people replying here write "when they feel like it." I used to be that way...I never got anything done. When I started trying to write daily, I found that I felt like writing more often, and the writing would come more easily. Some people might chafe at routine but sometimes it really helps make one more productive. Sometimes when you wait for inspiration to strike, you'll end up waiting forever.
I write when I write. Sometimes during the day, when at work or out shopping, I hope to have time to write later, but if I end up being too tired, then I just don't. It depends on how tired I am, how "in the mood" for writing I am, and how much free time I have. I usually write during the night or when I have hours alone in the house during the day. Right now, I haven't written anything since Thursday. Maybe tonight, who knows...
I'm in high school and I'm a band geek so almost every day I have something going on with band so my writing time is pretty limited during the school year. During the summer though, when I have a lot more time (because I'm lazy and don't do anything ) I write when I feel like it. I don't give myself a set time because I know it will never work because I'm so busy and I like to write when it's quiet. I think about my characters almost constantly and when I get a 'spark', for lack of a better term, sentences and paragraphs and scenes will form in my head and then I just have to write it out so I don't forget and in these kinds of moments I can usually get a lot done before the creative juice runs out
I hardly ever write anymore. I have the ideas in my head, even some of my story conversations going on through my head but once I finally get to the computer to start writing everything goes away and I can't get anything done. It's something I'm trying to work on. I've read that a person who loves to write should be writing something every day..whether it be a sentence or just the ideas..yet I haven't been doing anything. I've got to get my inspiration back and then I'll be writing again. And normally when I write I do it at night time for an hour or 2 depending on how I'm into the story, but I don't necessarily write something every night
I believe it was this forum, but several people on here like to say that "inspiration" in writing is a myth. Well, in the sense that you can't write until you are "inspired." Hm.
