What's your writing schedule?

NemoBook · Oct 8, 2007

I'm trying to juggle a lot of balls these days (grad-school, day-job, relationship, social life, writing; no kids yet!). My job is a flexible telecommuting one, so I work from home and I'm curious about other innovative ways that people use to structure their days.

I used to be more of a nightowl, beginning my writing around 10pm and writing until 3 or 4am. My new schedule currently looks something like this:

7-9am: wake-up, breakfast, emails, etc.
9-2pm: data entry dayjob blah; lunch
2-3pm: WeBook writing warm-up
3-6pm: writing, WIPs
6-8pm: exercise, break
8-9pm: dinner
9-11pm: schoolwork or relax

The 3-6pm writing slot doesn't seem to be working for me yet. Curious about other methods/schedules...
-A

Just Me 2021 · Oct 8, 2007

My schedule is the opposite of yours.

6:30-8:30 A.M. Get 3 kids ready for/to school (two different schools, two different schedules)
8:30-10 A.M. exercise and shower
10:00 A.M.-2:00 P.M. write
2-3 P.M. household chores/errands
3:00-9:30 P.M. Kids/family obligations (homework, sports, making dinner, cleaning up, baths, read with kids, snuggle time)
9:30-10:30 P.M. Relax if I don't fall asleep first

sneakers145 · Oct 8, 2007

My day is too nutty to schedule, what with running a business and two homeschooled kids.

But usually get up and check e-mails, shower and drive to work with kids, work til 5:30, drive home, dinner by 6:30-7pm, then write, depending on what the kids are doing.

Sometimes if work is dead I can write at work, sometimes the kids are too big a distraction, sometimes the dogs are the distraction, currently my old dog has issues and is going to the vet specialist on Weds so maybe if she can be fixed she'll stop peeing every 30 minutes.

I need quiet to write.

Can you do your schoolwork during the day? Or are the classes held at night?

scarletpeaches · Oct 8, 2007

Writing schedule: when I can be bothered.

That's about it.

PeeDee · Oct 8, 2007

These days, with a baby in the house, my writing schedule is haphazard. But in theory, it is:

Tuesday-Friday, I write every day from about 6:30am through 2:30 pm, then I go do household things (or keep writing, if I need to get more done). There's time in there where I wind up just doing baby things. It can't be helped.

Saturdays, I meet with people I know and we develop video games.

Sundays and Mondays, my wife is off and we spend some time together doing extremely little, which is a delight.

Scrawler · Oct 8, 2007

I don't really have a time schedule. My goal is to write 3,000 words a day, or at least get close to that. Some days I reach that goal, some days I spend a lot of time thinking, planning, plotting, developing.

melaniehoo · Oct 8, 2007

My set writing time is from 6:30-8:30pm when my husband has class, but I sometimes try to write earlier in the day so I can have that time free to read. I do very little all day so I should be writing more, but I spend several hours 'researching' my craft online.

JoNightshade · Oct 8, 2007

When I'm first-drafting, my goal is 2K words/day. I go in to the office (my p/t job) on Tuesday afternoons.

Other than that, I have no schedule. Zero. I'm not a very structured person.

I do whatever needs to get done that day, and I write during whatever time is left over. Right now I barely even have to cook because my husband just began his crunch period and they feed him dinner at work while he's doing 60 hour weeks.

vfury · Oct 8, 2007

Basically, I work writing around whatever shift I happen to be working that day. I do my best to write every day, or I make up for a skipped day in the next day's writing.

ccarver30 · Oct 8, 2007

Sun, Mon and another day- 2 hours after 7pm at Starbucks.

Siddow · Oct 8, 2007

I've made dozens of schedules over the past couple of years, but with four kids, it's hard to stick to one. So I write whenever I can carve out a block of two hours or more, or whenever I can grab fifteen minutes.

But come August of 2009, I'll be on a 8am-2pm schedule, five days a week, excluding school holidays. I'm drooling just thinking about it.

jennifer75 · Oct 8, 2007

We're on week 3 of a slowly-becoming-successful-nighttime-schedule and I've just been able to get in some t.v. time. I'm hoping soon to have worked in some writing time.

Hoping to work it all out this week, or next. Or the week after that...

amber_grosjean · Oct 8, 2007

I tend to write at night when the house is quiet but sometimes I also write during the day when ever I can. Yesterday I was alone for a few hours so instead of cleaning house, I wrote 10 pages of my WIP. I ended up cleaning house before going to bed which sometimes I do that, swap times with something else. It always depends on my time frame and how quiet it is. When people are constantly bugging you for something every few minutes its hard to sit down and write 5-10 pages let alone one so I have to wait until I have at least two hours to devout to writing.

During non-writing hours, I clean house, pay bills, work, and take care of my family. I squeeze in writing when ever I get the chance.

Amber

ZannaPerry · Oct 8, 2007

I am a nightowl so most of my writing is done in the late, late hours of night. I work better at night. No distractions.

10pm-2am or when I'm about to fall asleep - writing/reading/outlining
10:30am- waking up either going to work or class
3-5pm - either coming home from work or class
5-6:30pm - doing homework/reading/playing on computer/dinner...if I'm hungry
7-9pm - coaching my 4th grade volleyball team (usually every Mon-Wed-Friday nights)
9-10pm - come home and watch my favorite tv show.
10pm- WRITE time.

I love to sleep, and try to get at least eight hours of it every night. And when I'm lucky I get a usual 12hour sleep time. I don't have kids. I don't plan on having kids unless the great Lord decides I need to slow down in my life. I don't have much of a social life, and that's okay. No boyfriend to tie me down, no one real close except my family. And that's okay.

I'm concentrating on my education now, and writing.

David I · Oct 8, 2007

When I'm first geting rolling with a novel, I usually move at 3 hours per day for 750-1000 words, and that tends to happen in the morning. (I know this sounds slow, but that's 750-1000 words of polished prose.)

Later in the book, the hours get longer, the writing goes faster, and it happens at unpredictable times of day, including climbing out of bed at 3 in the morning because I can't sleep.

I know the standard advice is to write every day, and in my first novel I adhered slavishly to this ideal. In retrospect, this led me down too many wrong paths--scenes and subplots that might have been good, but didn't really belong in the story. Now I don't write until I'm pretty sure exactly what scene needs to come next, and if that means taking some days off to think, so be it.

I think it's important to work on your book every day, but that doesn't mean you must write every day.

I know this is a minority viewpoint. But Pulitzer-winning novelist Richard Ford says, "Most writers write too much."

ChaosTitan · Oct 8, 2007

I don't have a set work schedule, so it's impossible to have a set writing schedule. I just plug away as often as possible, as many days a week as I can manage, until the darn thing is written.

avid-dreamer · Oct 8, 2007

I think i'm obsessed

I write whenever and wherever I can. I take note pads into the bathroom while taking showers, getting ready to go out...or doing other stuff

which I care not to mention. I scribble on bits of paper at work and type it when I get home, I take a notepad into the kitchen when I am cooking and in the car when my husband is driving. I have my laptop set up at my side of the bed..I often fall asleep writing or messing around on this forum or shopping for clothing sales.

Sundays are my rest days. I watch tv and take it easy and if I write it's not much to talk about.

OddButInteresting · Oct 8, 2007

Writing doesn't factor at all into my current schedule. I'll jot down ideas, but nothing in the form of continuous, solid prose. I've got too much on my plate right now, so I'm giving it a few months to let my ideas stew for a little longer. I knocked out a couple of chapters during the Summer and realised there was so much more I wanted to do with it.

As an obsessive compulsive I'm naturally a perfectionist, and I really haven't the time to spare or the focus to put out my very best at this moment in time.

I don't like to write drafts. I write the one piece, and tweak it as necessary. That goes for anything I write. Drafts, for me, are just a waste of time; wasted time I could allocate to strengthening my ideas rather than hurrying to string them together.

bsolah · Oct 8, 2007

My 'schedule' isn't really up for debating, and it doesn't include writing.

7.30-8.30 - get up and get ready for work
9.00-5.00 - selling my soul to the devil
5.00-12.00 - either political meeting or too drained from work to do much else.

I did write at work yesterday which was quite nice, almost felt like revenge. But since starting full-time work over a year ago, writing schedules haven't really fitted in.

Gray Rose · Oct 8, 2007

7:00, get up, dress, feed baby, get baby ready for daycare.
8:30-9:00. Stroller ride with baby to daycare (time for thinking about my plot, scenes, etc.)
9:00-9:30. Commute to work. Continue thinking about plot, scenes, etc.
9:30-1:00 or 2:00 Teach.
1:00-2:00 writing slot.
2:30-3:00 stroller ride with baby from daycare. More thinking time.
3-7:30 Play with baby, cook, clean, read bibliography.
7:30-12:30 or later: 1/2 time work on WIPs, 1/2 time work on academic writing.

joyce · Oct 8, 2007

I'm a night writer and always have been. Sometimes the mood will hit me mid-morning, but generally it is at night. The house is quiet, I can't sleep anyway and it's when the spirit generally hits me. I wish I could do more of it during the day, but my mind gets cluttered with everything I should be doing.

NiennaC · Oct 8, 2007

I don't have a set schedule, more of a set amount of words: 2000 per day. Though it's rare that I actually get that much done.

TrickyFiction · Oct 8, 2007

I really need to make one of these.
I get too not-in-the-mood, when I really should just play BIC.

ZannaPerry · Oct 8, 2007

We had a vball game tonight. We lost.

but oh well, now I can hammer my kids in practice Wednesday. . . .

anyways, back to topic...

I get really bad in school because all I want to do is write about what I want to write, not what my professors tell me to write. It's a bad habit of mine since junior high. I sometimes tell myself that I cannot write my story today, I cannot write my story during class...but I can't help but not to when class gets sooo boring!

John61480 · Oct 8, 2007

If I recall, it only took about a month for me to reach 30,000 words in my WIP. I've been getting up in the mornings between 4-5 am. I can only really write for two hours maximum before I feel like I'm forcing myself to write the story. But currently, studying has taken over and I find that it is hard to write well and keep up with memorizing and understanding chapters from the textbook. I'm a slow learner even though I'm only taking one class. Recently in the WIP, I've been working on one scene for a couple days now. I'm thinking of taking a break from the manuscript and finishing it later when I'm able to give it better concentration. That last effort in rewriting an excerpt from the first chapter nearly killed me.

For me, it isn't the time in the day, it's the studying. My brain hurts, then I take a break, but the knowledge can vanish if I'm not too careful entertaining myself.

What's your writing schedule?

practical experience, FTW

Where's my tea, please...?

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