How important is it for a writer to have a schedule? In my opinion, extremely. If you plan to make writing your career and want to write full time, you need to treat it as a full time job. You need to work set hours and put in the effort and time into what you plan for your career. I don't know how many times I heard my grandmother say "You get what you put into it". How true that is especially with writing.
If you follow my blog, you will know that I have a very set career path of writing full time within the next year or so. In that vein, I need to set my writing work hours and treat my writing as if it was a job that I had to answer to someone else for. I set how much time I spend a day writing, and although I love the flexibility of changing the hours if I need to day to day depending on what is going on in my life, I have to remain rigid in the fact that I need to have at least three to four hours set aside each day for writing.
As I progress further into my writing career, I need to also set time for marketing and updating social media. And let's face it -- social media is a necessary evil for writers. It helps us connect with our readers, other writers and gives us the opportunity for networking, however it can be a huge time sucker from your day if you get caught up in it. I have found that I need to allow myself so much time in the day for social media and I use it in small chunks. Morning with my coffee -- check social media. After a writing chunk and I need a break -- I allow myself another social media check in and then again in the evening when my day is winding down.
What kind of writing schedule do you have and do you struggle with sticking to it?
If you follow my blog, you will know that I have a very set career path of writing full time within the next year or so. In that vein, I need to set my writing work hours and treat my writing as if it was a job that I had to answer to someone else for. I set how much time I spend a day writing, and although I love the flexibility of changing the hours if I need to day to day depending on what is going on in my life, I have to remain rigid in the fact that I need to have at least three to four hours set aside each day for writing.
As I progress further into my writing career, I need to also set time for marketing and updating social media. And let's face it -- social media is a necessary evil for writers. It helps us connect with our readers, other writers and gives us the opportunity for networking, however it can be a huge time sucker from your day if you get caught up in it. I have found that I need to allow myself so much time in the day for social media and I use it in small chunks. Morning with my coffee -- check social media. After a writing chunk and I need a break -- I allow myself another social media check in and then again in the evening when my day is winding down.
What kind of writing schedule do you have and do you struggle with sticking to it?