One of the most frustrating things a writer can encounter is not having the time to write. There is a whole cast of characters clamouring for your attention in your head, but you don’t have any time to let their voices speak because you’ve been blessed with a family (yeah, blessed, although sometimes we might use other words!) When your kids are young, then finding writing time is even more difficult.
So, how do you get time to write?
Here are six tips that I have for successfully writing when you have very young kids.
1 Recognise how it’s affecting you
It took me months to figure out that I was getting more and more moody, not only due to the lack of sleep, but the lack of writing time. If you get cranky when you can’t write (like me!), and you start taking that crankiness out on your family, it will make for an unpleasant home environment. You may only get a couple of hours a week of dedicated writing time, but it does help let off the steam.
2 Relax and go with the flow
I know it’s far easier to say ‘relax, go with the flow’ than it is to do. I’ve had the nights where I got – literally – twenty minutes of sleep. Or when I was up every hour on the hour. Or been so tired I can’t even cry. I’ve been in the trenches of parenthood, and those are the moments – and days – where your plans to work on that next chapter need to be loving set aside. Take a breath, let the frustration out, the words are in your brain and will come out another day.
You can’t fight that you have a family, and that they need you. This leads to the next point.
3 Write in five minute bursts
While you have young children you need to give up the notion (for a while) that you’ll get hours and hours of uninterrupted writing time. Take a deep breath, relax, I know that can be hard to hear.
What you can do, however, is take advantage of whatever time you find or carve out. Let me explain how I do this…
I use an app called Evernote that syncs across my phone, computer and iPhone, and a program called yWriter that syncs between my phone and computer through Dropbox. This allows me to take advantage of moments like waiting for the kettle to boil and tea to brew, waiting for something to cook (like pasta, or boiled eggs), waiting to pick up the kids from school. There are lots of five and ten minute windows during the day that can be used to write in. Once you get used to working this way, it’s easy to pick up where you left off.
4 Make sacrifices (yes, more!)
Writing with young kids means that any free time you have will have (yeah right! free time?) will need to be at least partially sacrificed to write. Since I love movies, I figured out that I can watch movies in short bursts while I’m doing the dishes or cleaning the bathroom or (if I put it on mute with subtitles or very very low volume) watch while getting the baby to sleep. This means that when I do have free time, even if it’s half an hour before bed, I have had my movie ‘fix’, so I can contentedly write because I have satisfied my inner movie-buff.
Another thing you can do was inspired by a writer interview I read years ago. This writer used to get up at 5am so she would have two hours to write before getting her kids up at 7am for school. In order to get up that early, she went to bed with her kids at night. From personal experience, with two of my own young children (one in school, one still at home) I can attest that this schedule is possible. When you start it, expect it to take about a month for your body to get used to the new hours.
The one thing that for some is extremely hard to sacrifice is their writing environment. I have met some people who insist that in order to work they must have their desk set up a certain way, steaming coffee beside them, candle lit and absolute, utter quiet. Well, when you’ve got small kids, it’s more likely you typing an idea frantically into your phone while you are sitting on the toilet, while you’re little ones are chasing each other around pretending to be monkeys and screaming like banshees, and you’re hoping the chicken in the oven doesn’t burn, and you hear a strange sound coming from the washing machine. So, you may need to let go of the ‘ideal’ writing environment for now. Be grateful for any few minutes you carve out to type out a few sentences.
5 Collect your writing in one place so it’s not scattered all over.
In the Evernote app I mentioned above, I have made folders for every book I’m working on (yes, there are several I always have on the go), folders for notes, folders for research, etc etc. Within each folder are ‘notes’ that are like pieces of paper within the folder. The notes can be tagged and searched easily, so there isn’t a fear of losing something. This means that I can collect information in one place, and I’m not chasing little tiny bits of paper around the house (or – God forbid! – accidentally throwing them out!) If it’s just a few lines I want to jot down for a random story, I have a folder called ‘ideas’ where such tidbits can go.
When I do actually sit down to write at an actual table, my digital notes are right there and ready to be opened up and worked on.
Having a system like this gives me a lot of peace of mind. There are other apps available that do similar work. If you don’t have one already, search for ‘notetaking apps’ and see what’s there. Download a few and play with them for a week or so before committing all-in to one, because having to transfer notes between apps is annoying!
6 Write while feeding the baby
If you have a baby that you are breastfeeding, then this is prime writing time. I wrote my first book, on my phone (an old iPhone 4 in fact with a tiny screen!) while I breastfed my first child. Writing helped me stay awake during the night feeds as well, and helped reduce my resentment of the rest of the family who were contentedly sleeping while I was up doing the little-appreciated, but oh-so-beneficial mommy duty of breastfeeding (oh yes, I feel your pain!)
If you feed your baby with a bottle, then it might take some creative pillow-propping to get the bottle supported, so you can have a free hand to type on your phone.
So, relax, take a deep breath, and remember that you can get all of those amazing plot lines in your head down on paper while you are managing your family. Just go at it like you’d eat an elephant: One bite at a time.
Write on!
Amanda