When I was younger, I used to dream about what being an author would be like. It usually involved me sitting at an oversized antique desk in the middle of my book-laden study—think Belle’s library in Beauty and the Beast—smiling gently while typing away at my latest novel. The flow of brilliance (no writer’s block for me!) would be interrupted only occasionally by a loving, supportive family member bringing me hot chocolate and cookies.
Karen M. McManus
Reality, as it turns out, goes more like this:
Wake up at six. Shuffle into study, open laptop, and recoil at the cringe-y dialogue I wrote the night before. Edit away until it starts to resemble actual human conversation, and then—
“MOM! WE’RE OUT OF CEREAL!”
Close laptop. Get self and child ready for work/school. Come up with an idea for plugging a troublesome plot hole en route, and dictate it into my phone in the parking lot.
Arrive at work, where I manage a marketing team. I’m fortunate to have an interesting, flexible job with colleagues who I genuinely like. Still, that’s eight straight hours of non-writing, and nobody ever brings me hot chocolate.
After work comes pickup from childcare, and some combination of meal preparation, homework, and/or kid activities. Some of this requires my full attention, and some doesn’t. You’d be surprised, for example, how many pages can be written between innings at a baseball game.
It’s not until my son goes to bed that I have a few hours of down time, and that’s when I do the bulk of my writing. Nine p.m. until midnight, almost every night. When the words are flowing, I can write a couple thousand words during that time. When they’re not, even a few dozen keep things moving along.
I’ve gotten to know a lot of authors over the past couple years, and most of them experience some variation on this theme. We’re all juggling different combinations of writing, working, caretaking, and generally keeping up with life.
So how does anyone make this work? When I look over my typical day, a few themes emerge that I think are common to many authors:
- Take advantage of free moments. Writing is often something that happens in the spaces between everything else.
- Always be ready to capture ideas. I have various note-taking and dictation apps on my phone that make sure I don’t forget something that pops into my head at a random moment.
- Write regularly, even when feeling uninspired. Those words aren’t always the best, but they’re rarely a waste of time and usually lead to something better.
- Decide what you’re not going to do. There are things I won’t give up to write—important occasions with family and friends—and things I will, like my favorite television shows, a clean house, and an extra hour of sleep.
And maybe above all: accept that whatever system you come up with is going to be messy, imperfect, and often chaotic. Just like the rest of life.
