Part-time Genius - How do you cope?

[David Steele]

Since not many of us (I assume) are lucky enough to write full time, I wonder how you manage to separate your writing from the rest of what you do?

I put eight hours a day in as a proposal writer, which I really enjoy. It allows me to write for a living, even if it isn’t exactly what I’d most like to be writing. For example, it’s quite likely for me to be writing:

Every member of our team is responsible for safety. Our Near Miss reporting procedure actively encourages all individuals to submit written reports for anything which could constitute a hazard. This approach has made a significant reduction in the overall number of incidents across the country….​

While I’m actually thinking about writing:

It was a nut brown, musty mushroom smelling evening of syrupy golden light and the crisp, shiny leaves were whirling all about like clockwork mice. Wild magic was trying its best to force its way out of Lyrie's satchel, but she knew it had a strong buckle. It would probably hold…​

I get in from work at about 7 PM, and after spending time walking the dog, eating, doing housework, I normally get just a couple of hours to go creatively crazy and let it all out.

How do you cope? What’s your strategy?

 

[Karen Gray]

My strategy is to have the laptop on at all times and write snippets when I can. I think about the story all day long.

I do have the plus that I am at home most of the time but with 2 wee ones and hubby needing help (hence the reason I am no longer a riding instructor 36 hrs a week) I have very little time to sit still until after 7 pm.

From then until I can't see straight is writing time then it's up at 6 to do it all over again.

I cope because I never stop writing in my head I think. So I can roll out about 5000 words a night (because it's already written in my head) if I get the kids to bed on time and hubby's had an early night.

 

[Jennifer Stone]

For myself, I'm mostly unemployed atm, with occasional evening work at weekends. So the only things to distract me from writing is facebook, google, ebay, prison architect and the cat. My side projects are drawing, painting and working my sewing machine.
I wrote my ms about three years ago, across 3 A4 notebooks, once finished, my hubby bought me a laptop to type it up. So now, editing takes up most of my writing time.

 

[Marc Joan]

It was a nut brown, musty mushroom smelling evening of syrupy golden light and the crisp, shiny leaves were whirling all about like clockwork mice. Wild magic was trying its best to force its way out of Lyrie's satchel, but she knew it had a strong buckle. It would probably hold…​

That's lovely writing, by the way. But you already know that...


Re strategy, I have frequent insomniac periods when I find myself awake in the wee hours. On those occasions, I jump enthusiastically out of bed [ha] and wend my weary way to the laptop, via kettle / tea. I often manage to get in a couple of hours or more before the others wake up. Doesn't always work - sometimes I find myself staring at the screen and not doing anything, other times I produce a pile of the steaming unmentionable. The final edit certainly needs me to be awake and alert, which doesn't happen all that often. Hence my glacially slow output.

 

[Emurelda]

Like Karen I imagine a lot of my scenes and think through the story and characters much like a film in my head. Currently my method is to use the campnanowrimo months to finish a book amongst a camaraderie atmosphere. Next camp is in July and I am in planning mode now getting ready for 'Saving Grace' Book 2 in the Elemons Series. I managed to finish my first draft of Noble Beginnings in April's campnanowrimo.

It's the only way I get it done. So I spend a few months planning and psyching myself up for a mammoth month putting all the pieces together in first draft.

 

[Jason Byrne]

It's a long hour-and-a-half one-way commute to work, so I'm up at 4:30 am, so I'm in bed by 10:00-12:00. I've vowed not to write at home unless it's a matter of life or death, to devote that time to picking up carryout, spending time with my wife, watching TV, and arguing. That leaves downtime during the nine-to-five, where I work doing shipping/receiving for an A/V company, and as assistant to the facilities/inventory manager. Despite how long it takes to say all that, I do have a good chunk of slow time during the day, which is why you will always find my posts come between 8:30-5:00 Eastern Standard Time.

Other than that, the notepad on my iPhone takes a lot of dictation, which I zip off in an e-mail to myself to compile with the notes files I keep on the computer, at work and at home.

 

[Marc Joan]

It's a long hour-and-a-half one-way commute to work, so I'm up at 4:30 am, so I'm in bed by 10:00-12:00. .

That's a tough schedule. I hope you look after yourself on the weekend...

 

[Jason Byrne]

Haha, the weekends are for picking up carryout, doing dishes, watching TV, and sleeping.

(Not sure when it stopped being for carousing, but it did...)

 

[Alistair Roberts]

I presume Jason on the long commute you either write or make notes? My situation is a little different, looking after my partner who suffers extreme anxiety so I do mot of the house work, take her where she needs to go, but leaving me plenty of time to write. Although for 2 years before she came along I managed to write 5 novels, I spend far more time editing these days and learning as much as I can to improve the writing. Learnt lots of useful tips around here, so this is my favourite website ;-)

 

[Jason Byrne]

I presume Jason on the long commute you either write or make notes? My situation is a little different, looking after my partner who suffers extreme anxiety so I do mot of the house work, take her where she needs to go, but leaving me plenty of time to write. Although for 2 years before she came along I managed to write 5 novels, I spend far more time editing these days and learning as much as I can to improve the writing. Learnt lots of useful tips around here, so this is my favourite website ;-)

Actually I'm very similar to you, Alastair! I do all the shopping, and all the driving, and Heaven help if I don't have both hands on the wheel. so I do most of my note-taking after I've dropped my wife off at work and pulled up to my own. My drive is spent repeatedly remembering and forgetting what it is about which I need to take note.

I wrote... I think I counted twenty-four books, in twelve years, before getting married, and left a string of severely-neglected significant others. In the past six years of marriage, I've written two and a half books. Your productivity drops from about 2.0 books/year to 0.417, and the remaining 1.583 books/year are converted into adulthood.

 

[Stephen Drake]

Like some, I no longer do the "9 to 5". My wife is blind (mostly) so I take her where she needs to go, when she needs me to. I spend lots of time on the computer during the week, but try to quit about 5:00 pm PST to watch tv with the wife and knit. That being said, I have to make lots of notes on most everything (memory issues). Like most of you, I plot and plan in my head a lot, make notes, etc. and work on editing my completed novel. There are times I get tired of being in the realm of my first and second book, so will spend time weaving another one. The hard part I have to remember to make a note about some insight I thought of while driving. I sometimes forget to make a note about something I wanted (or needed) to remember later. Note: My first novel started as a short-story in 1974 and then spent 30+ years banging around inside my head until it finally started to escape in 2005.

 

[Jason Byrne]

Like some, I no longer do the "9 to 5". My wife is blind (mostly) so I take her where she needs to go, when she needs me to. I spend lots of time on the computer during the week, but try to quit about 5:00 pm PST to watch tv with the wife and knit. That being said, I have to make lots of notes on most everything (memory issues). Like most of you, I plot and plan in my head a lot, make notes, etc. and work on editing my completed novel. There are times I get tired of being in the realm of my first and second book, so will spend time weaving another one. The hard part I have to remember to make a note about some insight I thought of while driving. I sometimes forget to make a note about something I wanted (or needed) to remember later. Note: My first novel started as a short-story in 1974 and then spent 30+ years banging around inside my head until it finally started to escape in 2005.

Well-put, MontanaMan. I have the MS Word app on my iPhone; I'll proofread the day's work for a bit in the evening, while the TV's on, that way. My father did very much the same with his book as did you, an "eastern philosophy meets quantum physics" treatise.

 

[Stephen Drake]

Well-put, MontanaMan. I have the MS Word app on my iPhone; I'll proofread the day's work for a bit in the evening, while the TV's on, that way. My father did very much the same with his book as did you, an "eastern philosophy meets quantum physics" treatise.

Interesting!

 

[Kitty]

How I wish I could earn enough from my writing to give up the day job, but those pesky bills all have to be paid.

 

[Stephen Drake]

How I wish I could earn enough from my writing to give up the day job, but those perky bills all have to be paid.

Don't I know it! I sometimes wish I could do a "9 to 5", but I can't.

 

[Karen Gray]

Don't I know it! I sometimes wish I could do a "9 to 5", but I can't.

Preaching to the choir @MontanaMan65

 

[David Steele]

I try really hard to fit in my "need" to do creative things while living a fairly normal life.
Some people feel guilty if they don't make it to the gym, but I feel guilty if I spend a couple of hours watching a movie or playing a computer game when I could be writing.
I'm not alone, I take it?

 

[Karen Gray]

I try really hard to fit in my "need" to do creative things while living a fairly normal life.
Some people feel guilty if they don't make it to the gym, but I feel guilty if I spend a couple of hours watching a movie or playing a computer game when I could be writing.
I'm not alone, I take it?

OH! Me too, me to! It's the worst feeling ever. like you are letting your most respected someone down and its unforgivable.

 

[Meerkat]

When I was working a day job, I didn't write after work, ever, because I get drained pretty easily. I would try to write on weekends, but I was always so anxious about all the errands and housework that I needed to do that it never went very well.

Eventually I reverted to writing longhand in notebooks. I always had slow periods at work, so I would just write in my notebook.

I too feel so guilty if I'm doing anything but editing or writing, unless I've done it already that day. That's the reason I don't play computer games and never watch a movie unless I have it on in the background while I'm sewing or cleaning. I figure that if I have time to waste, then I have time to be productive. OTOH I can justify spending time doing other creative projects or reading, since any creative work you do is good for stirring up writerly creativity.

Since I quit my day job, I've written or otherwise worked on one of my stories every single day, unless I have to "take off" for appointments and such. I've written three stories in two and a half months, which may not sound like much, but when you consider that in my five years of college I only wrote about four stories in total and that in the three years between college and a few months ago I only wrote four stories as well . . . it's pretty impressive. I'm just the sort of person who can't divide my energies.

 

[Jason Byrne]

I try really hard to fit in my "need" to do creative things while living a fairly normal life.
Some people feel guilty if they don't make it to the gym, but I feel guilty if I spend a couple of hours watching a movie or playing a computer game when I could be writing.
I'm not alone, I take it?

I feel guilty when I don't write or go to the gym. Which is ever. Lotta guilt.

 

[Stephen Drake]

I try really hard to fit in my "need" to do creative things while living a fairly normal life.
Some people feel guilty if they don't make it to the gym, but I feel guilty if I spend a couple of hours watching a movie or playing a computer game when I could be writing.
I'm not alone, I take it?

Nope!

 

[Marc Joan]

Reading the above posts, I am not only amazed that anybody ever writes anything at all, but also by the myriad small acts of great kindness that are shown in peoples' home lives - makes me feel very inadequate.
Note to self: stop shouting at everybody when things don't go exactly right, all the time. Which is all the time.

 

[Stephen Drake]

Reading the above posts, I am not only amazed that anybody ever writes anything at all, but also by the myriad small acts of great kindness that are shown in peoples' home lives - makes me feel very inadequate.
Note to self: stop shouting at everybody when things don't go exactly right, all the time. Which is all the time.

You know what they say, "Murphy was an optimist!"

 

[James Marinero]

Since not many of us (I assume) are lucky enough to write full time, I wonder how you manage to separate your writing from the rest of what you do?

How do you cope? What’s your strategy?

'Part time genius'? - go full time LOL

I usually work in the mornings (commercial - proposals, marketing collateral, ebooks and so on) then try to do some writing in the pm, interspersed with boat maintenance and other chores. My fiction writing pattern is 'lumpy' and my output is best when I am single minded and take a break from the commercial work and other distractions. What I do like is that I get completely immersed in the fiction work and forget the clock.

My strategy is contingent...

You know what they say, "Murphy was an optimist!"

An optimist is someone who doesn't understand the world around him/her.

 

[Karen Gray]

An optimist is someone who doesn't understand the world around him/her.

I beg to differ. An optimist is someone who understands the world perfectly well but won't let it get them down (Pst... I'm an optimist Lol!)

 

[Jason Byrne]

I beg to differ. An optimist is someone who understands the world perfectly well but won't let it get them down (Pst... I'm an optimist Lol!)

I think that's a realist, actually...

 

[Alistair Roberts]

A real - optimist?

 

[Karen Gray]

I think that's a realist, actually...

Not really. A realist sees an issue and acts accordingly. An optimist sees an issue and hopes for the best, but if it goes wrong they just try again. - at least, that's what I think it is lol

 

[Jason Byrne]

Good point. Okay. She's an optimist, folks! And I suppose when it comes down to it I am too.

Does it count if you presume it will turn out alright because you pathologically refuse to let things go until they do? And you growl, "never give up. Never surrender," all the while?

 

[Karen Gray]

Good point. Okay. She's an optimist, folks! And I suppose when it comes down to it I am too.

Does it count if you presume it will turn out alright because you pathologically refuse to let things go until they do? And you growl, "never give up. Never surrender," all the while?

Lol I'd say yes to that!