Getting Your Writing Mojo Back

Lately, okay for the past few months, I've been struggling with getting even the tiniest bit of writing or revisions done. There's a great article by Elisabeth Staab on the Fiction University website about how to reboot your writing when you haven't written in a while.

Since I'm hoping I'm not the only one struggling to get work done on my manuscript, I thought I'd share the link to the article here. Link: Rebooting Your Writing...

Let me know if you find any of the tips helpful.

Motivation...

As some of you may know my work schedule changed not long ago. I still start at the same time, but instead of getting home at 3:15, I now get home around 5:30. By the time I change out of my office attire, make dinner, clean up after dinner, pack lunches for the next day, and do all the other things that need to be done, it's somewhere between 7:00 and 7:30pm. I then try to do an hour of family time so my family doesn't feel neglected and I don't feel like I'm not present in their day.

My writing routine was usually to be at the laptop by 3:30pm and to write or work on revisions until 5:00 or 5:15pm, then I would start dinner and so on. I miss that hour and a half more than I can say. I'm continuing to struggle to find writing time. Some days I manage to write or revise a few pages, some days quite a few pages, and other days, no pages at all.

There are some days when I finally get a chance to sit and just be for a few minutes and the last thing I want to do is turn the laptop. On the days where I've had a rough day at work, the last thing I want to do is come home and write. I just want to escape into a book for a while. You'd think that those bad work days would give me even more motivation to write so that I'm that much closer to being able to write full time.

I don't know that I can say I'm lacking motivation so much as time seems to be at a premium. I know working the hours I do now and taking care of family commitments, and writing regularly is possible. There are a number of authors who do it quite well. A good example is my sister...although she's not a writer.

She went back to school full time to get her nursing degree. Besides carrying a full course load that required a great deal of outside of class work as well as studying, she worked thirty hours a week, and took care of her family including taking her two teenage daughters to and from various after school sporting activities. She did this for eighteen months before graduating with her RN degree and passing her state board examination. I asked her how she managed to keep up with everything. She laughed and said lack of sleep. She only averaged between 4 and 5 hours of sleep a night. She said that many times she'd fall asleep at the dining room table while studying.

I am serious about my writing career, but I don't want to walk around sleep deprived. I also tend to get crabby when I'm really tired and who wants to go around feeling crabby much less having to deal with me being that way. There are also numerous studies showing the ill effects on your health if you're chronically sleep deprived.

So until I can figure out a writing schedule that's doable for the long term, I'll keep trying to fit writing into my day the best way I can.

This I know for sure...

It's hard getting back into a regular routine after the holidays are over. Proof of this is the fact I didn't do Wednesday's post. I completely forgot all about it. Didn't even think about it until Thursday morning when I was getting ready for the day.

The only thing I've done on a regular basis that I did before the holidays is write. I didn't get much done from Thanksgiving on through New Year's day so I feel like I'm making up for lost time instead of being on schedule.

I did learn something from last year's holidays -- don't expect to make much headway in the writing area during this time. In fact when I set my writing goals for 2015, I purposely set aside those 6 weeks or so as non-writing time. It shortens my writing calendar a bit but I feel it's well worth squeezing extra writing sessions in in the summer months than stress myself out trying to do everything that comes with the holiday season and trying to meet a writing goal by the end of the year.

Finding Time

My day job schedule is changing soon so I won't have the hour and a half of writing time I used to have every day before starting dinner. I'm worried about how and where I'll find that time in my new schedule. I hope to be able to write on my lunch, but that may not always be possible. I'm going to try and write in the evenings while the boy child is playing video games, but again worry that may not happen due to other household chores I used to do during that time.

One thing I've heard a number of writers do is get up an hour earlier than they need to and write before starting their day. That's not something I really want to do or maybe try only as a last resort. I already get up at 5:00am six days a week. That being said, I'm asking everyone who works full time outside the home how and when do you find time to write while juggling family and home responsibilities. I'd love some suggestions I can try once my new schedule begins.

Writing Time

First, sorry about the lack of posts last week. A personal matter came up with no forewarning so I didn't have time to schedule posts ahead of time.

This led me to start thinking about how life can sometimes interrupt our regular writing and promotional routines. We all have responsibilities within our daily lives that at times will take precedence over everything else. Those of us who work outside the home and have limited time for writing and promotion may find that days go by before we can find the time to sit down and write.

I started thinking how I could prevent that. Of course, there will always be times when I just can't get to the computer due to a pressing responsibility, but how can I keep on track?  Here are a few things I'm going to try the next time something comes up that throws my writing routine out the window:

1. Write a few blogs and keep them saved on my computer so if something like last week comes up, I'll have a few posts ready.
2. I keep a notebook and pen in my purse. Use those to jot down ideas, settings, outlines of scenes, or snippets of dialogue when I have a few free minutes while I'm waiting in the doctor's office, the hospital waiting room, etc.  This way those things don't disappear into the ether and I have them when I can get back to my routine.
3. Post on Facebook (and Twitter once I figure out how to use it effectively) from my phone while I'm doing all that waiting.

I'd love to hear how you handle life's interruptions to your writing time.