How do you deal with everything else?

Soo, a bit of tough love. The painful truth is that you're right: the world really just couldn't care less. Writing is insular and often isolating. It's hard to explain to others. It's really hard to prioritise.

The first thing you have to do is stop waiting for writing conditions to be perfect. I write when I can grab 15 minutes here and there, if that's all I've got. I'm a parent and a student and a teacher and I'm disabled. I have to make time. You have to make time. I write instead of watching TV. I write instead of sleeping. Sometimes I can't find anything to write instead of, and on those days I don't write at all. If writing is as important to you as you say, and the only time you have is truly 15-minute grabs, you need to learn to write in those. It might be hard.

It helps me to have stuff that's writing adjacent, for the days when I really can't sit down and do proper writing. So, making notes about writing, or plotting something on the back of an envelope. Recording an idea on my phone. Talking to someone about writing. Visiting a bookshop. Listening to a writing podcast. That keeps the writer part of my brain active enough that I don't have to start from the blocks when I do finally get some time again.

I completely understand and sympathise with your frustration! The reality is that no one can do anything about it except you.

I'm a single parent and work full time. Weekends are taken up with taking kids to various sporting activities. I find time to write when I can. I enjoy writing - it helps me to relax. Probably that's the main thing that helps. I agree with Anna about making time... just make time to write. It doesn't have to be big chunks of time. I get up an hour earlier than my kids and other than that it's just a case of doing some writing here and there during the day. I'd love to have a big chunk of unbroken time, but there's no point getting upset that I don't.

Also, be kind to yourself. Okay so you can't dedicate a huge amount of time to writing - just do what you can and don't beat yourself up about it.

I do write fifteen minutes here and there, but I appreciate not everyone can. My partner can't, so he doesn't write.

I have no good answers. We home ed 2 kids, both with special needs, and have little available family support. That takes most of the time.

So writing for me, means I no longer have hobbies or social activities. I could occasionally go out, see friends, spend more time with the kids (gahhhh), do engagements, have fun, watch anime, watch films, go running - whatever, but I don't. I just write, now. Every spare minute.

Atm, I wouldn't be able to write a novel because my youngest (autistic) is getting bigger and more demanding, but fortunately I don' t have any pressing impetus to start another long project just yet. At least, until he goes to nursery, when hopefully I'll get a few hours back in the day.

It is a matter of priorities. many people has a lot of things they want to do and not enough time to do them. you have to prioritise what ever you want to do. and if writing is something that require more then 15 minutes then you need to schedule it adequately. If you feel that you can't prioritise writing and don't have the time for it, maybe it is better that you face reality and understand that not every one can achieve every thing they want in life. We are all adults in here, most of us, and we know that life can be frustrating and disappointing some time. and even if your dream was to publish books there is a limit to how much any of us is willing to sacrifice in order to achieve our dream. and I don't want to say that you should not chase your dream and to be the 'bad' guy, but you need to be realistic and face reality.
I have a few dream of my own I will never fulfil. I come to accept that and to make other dreams that I can, maybe, fulfil.

The only thing I could suggest is to perhaps take it slow, and be kind to yourself. Writing has no expiry date, but life will probably calm down a little eventually.

If you are able to spare the sleep, getting up an hour earlier every morning to write is another popular way of squeezing in some time.

I've gone through lots of phases when I didn't write though I wanted to. It is frustrating, mostly because writing is one of the few things we do for ourselves sometimes. When we neglect writing, we neglect ourselves. But when we neglect the rest of our responsibilities and especially the people around us, really bad consequences can happen. So yes, we have to find the balance that works for each of us.

Like everybody else, I have tons of other stuff going on, and the decision I made was that I won't work full time, only very part-time, so that I have space to write on the days when my kids don't take up all of my energy. That only works with an understanding and financially stable spouse, so I'm lucky. But that also meant I decided to adjust my lifestyle. We do not have as much material stuff as we'd have if I worked a normal job. We have what we need, some things that we want (we travel a lot), but we're not wealthy by any stretch.

You're right, writing is not like a normal hobby, and for a lot of us, it isn't a hobby at all. We work at it as if we were getting paid for it though we might never get a cent. That's the sacrifice we make to the art. We give without much hope of the kind of rewards that make sense to non-writers. I used to be really strict with myself, writing every single day at least a little, even on holidays, I'd get up super early etc. What happened was that I burned out. I just can't live like that. I need sleep. I need and want to see my husband and kids without thinking about all the writing I should be getting done. I need exercise and a hobby or two, just stuff I can play around with and enjoy.

So I began writing a bit less. Five days a week, 2-3 hours a day, and I don't even always do that. I exercise, I eat pretty okay, I try to get more sleep, I do fun stuff. I'm more relaxed -- and my writing is better. Because I am.

I agree with others that you should be kind to yourself. Maybe you can figure out how to let that frustration go if you step back and think about what that feeling is trying to tell you. Maybe it's not just "write more," it might be "I don't have any time for ME!" And maybe then there's a way for you to fill that need in some other smaller way while you figure out how and when to get some writing in.

Harlequin said:

/.../ So writing for me, means I no longer have hobbies or social activities./.../

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Yup. Also no social networks and no TV really helps. The moment you stop recognizing contemporary celebrities, and today's with-it buzzwords begin to sound like gibberish, and you no longer understand the point about most of today's "totally important hot issues"--you've succefully cut the needless fat in life. It seems to me. As it were.

...Personally, as more of a planner, I'd use the 15 minute bursts to sketch out scenes, and the occasional longer burst--to turn it into prose.

For some people writing becomes "an escape" from the other parts of life, and gradually they start seeing these other parts of life as "merely stuff you have to get out of the way", before "the real thing begins". Which, to me at least, is bordeline junkie behavior. "Real life" deserves the same respect as writing, and writing deserves the respect of being about more than "my shot of heroin to get away from it all".

Ideally, IMO, the act of writing also helps one become a better person, and a better actor in the "real world" outside of writing. They should strengthen each other.

And lastly, one's current realistic abilities are one's real level for this moment in time. The guitar player who never has time to practice for more than ten minutes and is at level X, but "if he had like a week just to practice he'd totally be on his real level Y"--this guy's real level is not Y, it's X. The other is a fantasy level which would possibly appear, if A, B, and C were to happen. But they aren't happening, so he's X, not Y.

Likewise, if one only has the time to write a sentence a day, and at most a few short stories a year--then that's the situation. If 2018 only allows the opportunity to write a couple of short stories--then we write a couple of short stories. If at any point it becomes realistic to write something more massive--we jump at the chance, but only then

I used to write at work a lot.

I hesitate to give advice on these things, but whenever I'm stuck I like to read. Sometimes resetting your brain with a book can help you see things in a different light, or from a different angle.

Sometimes I write at home on the PC. Sometimes I write/edit on my phone while I'm travelling on public transport. Sometimes I write just before bed, and sometimes in the morning just before I get out of bed. I find it difficult to sit for hours an end writing, so snippets here and there work for me anyway. It's just much slower than I'd like.

I agree on the sentiment that writing is isolating. People show interest, but ultimately the one that truly cares about your writing is you, and you're the only one that can truly motivate you to do it, even when the world is whizzing past and no one gives a damn.

I do what I can, because if I can't take some time to write, I feel super irritated.

Toto Too said:

Thanks to every one of you for the responses. It's so nice to talk with people who understand.

Having thought about this more, part of the problem - a big part - is that I'm really stuck right now on one part of the story, and it's taking much longer than I expected to get it right. I know, I've already gotten great advice on here before about not setting artificial deadlines, especially unrealistic ones. "It takes as long as it takes." But while that might be true, it also really sucks.

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Okay, first thing. Have you really analysed your week? Are there things you could replace writing with? Do you really need to watch the repeat of a programme you've seen before? Do soaps really matter? Must you be on this forum reading other posts? (Well, okay, that's different. )

If there's other things you normally fill your spare time with (remember we're talking your spare time, not those things you have to do with others) think to yourself "Do I really want to do this or would I rather be writing?"

Once you start to look at your day/week like this then it should be come clear where you can fit in the time to write.

You may find that there are times when you can write that you didn't think of, or get technology to assist you. One man wrote a 260-page biography of Lucian Freud almost entirely on his BlackBerry, in bed while his wife slept, travelling to and from work, when he had breaks in the park...


Now, for the second thing, the bit you are stuck on.

Have you written the rest of the story and it's just that bit? If not, stick in a placeholder for that and come back to it later. Give yourself a complete break from the bit you're stuck on.

If there is only this bit left to do, then maybe again you need to have a complete break - or go and write something else. When you come back to it you may see it more clearly. Even though you weren't thinking about it consciously, your mind was probably working on it.

I don't know if this would help you, but it helped me. Like many of the posters here, long stretches of time to write were hard for me to come by, as well. I found that if I only had 15 minutes, I would edit what I'd already written, knowing that I could get through x amount of paragraphs in the time allotted. This kept my head in the story, even if I couldn't advance it very much, if at all. Then when fortune smiled, planets aligned, and I was gifted some contiguous time-slots, I could maybe seize it and move ahead.
Maybe. So far for me, no tool works all the time. There is a part of this that just boils down to continuing to do it. Keep it up, and don't quit!

a lot of time, people think, "if only I could get a nice long stretch of a couple of hours, think of how much writing I could get done". However, when that happens, they find themselves petering out after 45 minutes anyway... find those 45 minutes anywhere you can. Dedicate half an hour here and there and sit down and write. You may very well find that you get more down when you determine that you are doing to spend a solid half hour writing and doing nothing else rather than when you finally get that 2 hours to "sit down and write for a while" anyway.

i know you said you can't write that way, but have you ever tried it? Just saying, "ok, the next 30 minutes are for writing and writing only?" and seeing what you can produce? you might be surprised.

Get up an hour early and use that hour to write. The bottom line is that, if you can't prioritize writing in your life, then you can't write.

Jeff

I used to get very frustrated, too, with family and my busy 'real job' commitments. But a few years ago I realised that until I am able to write full time - probably in retirement - writing has to take a back seat. I try to get a four hour writing session on the weekend (I need at least that long to be productive), which is realistic, though not certain. I'm very happy if this happens, but it's no big deal if it doesn't. The writing gets done over time.