Ah… that empty screen or fresh piece of paper, just waiting to accept your words. Writing is everyone’s dream job isn’t it? Well, some days it is and some days it can feel like the seventh circle of hell. For many of us, writing time has also got to fit around the rest of life. Here are my 5 top tips to help you get the most out of whatever time you can get for your writing, whether it’s packed into a few grabbed minutes or has the luxury of a longer spell.
ALWAYS be able to capture ideas!
Personally, I’m an analog kind of person, so I always have a pen and paper/notebook on me, but it doesn’t matter if you write it out, type it out, record it on your phone or leave yourself meaningful patterns of twigs to capture your ideas, just make sure you can capture them! You never know when the next brilliant plot twist will come to you, or when you might hear the perfect phrase or snippet of conversation! Capture, capture, capture.
Stimulate your creativity
You might think that day-dreaming, letting your mind wander freely wherever it wants would be the perfect way to stimulate your creativity, but maybe a packet of sweets or some colored buttons might help more.
Researchers compared creativity after people had done various different tasks, from sitting staring into space, to sorting buttons, sweets or Lego bricks into different colors. The results showed that those who had been doing fairly mindless tasks like sorting things into colors, were more creative afterwards than those who had spent the time day-dreaming or staring into space. If the words are hiding from you, get a packet of sweets or a bucket of Lego bricks and sort them out – by size, color, whatever. It’s better than staring at the screen, hoping that the words will suddenly appear. Even folding laundry will do the trick!
Treat your writing like it’s important to you
Ever had good intentions to “get some writing done tomorrow” and then, tomorrow rolls around and you’ve chores to do and the kids to take to swimming and dinner to make and somehow, before you know it, it’s midnight and you got no writing done?
Even if you can only commit to 10 minutes a day, make the commitment. Make an appointment with your writing and keep it. You wouldn’t arrange a date with your partner and then not go. You wouldn’t skip out on a meeting with your boss. Yet all too often we say we’ll get some writing done and then get pulled away into doing something else. Make the commitment small if you know you’ll be busy, but still keep it. Over time, those ten minutes grow into hours and you’ve finished that elusive first draft.
Tell others that your writing is important to you!
Then they’ll understand why you need to spend time on it. Otherwise it can become a bone of contention between you and your loved ones: you get frustrated, thinking that you’ll never get that first draft finished; friends and family want you to spend time with them and don’t get why you’re scribbling away in a different room. There is enough time in the day; you just need to be flexible. And negotiate!
Enjoy it!
Even if it feels hard, even if it takes you all day to find that perfect word or phrase that you’ve been hunting for, don’t tear your hair out that you didn’t get 3000 words down today; revel in the fact that you got that word or phrase perfect. The thousands of words will come another day. And if you get “writers’ block”? Spend five minutes describing exactly how frustrating it is and then use that description in your next project.
So there you have it. My top tips for getting the most out of whatever time to write that you have.
Amanda Fleet lives in Scotland with her husband where she can be found writing, walking and running. Her debut thriller – The Wrong Kind of Clouds – was published in Spring, 2016. You can learn more about her and catch up with all her news at http://www.amandafleet.co.uk/ where you can also sign up for her newsletter and be the first to hear about special offers and bonuses.