One of the biggest eyeroll moments in my writing life is when I tell someone I'm a writer and they ask what my 'real' job is. Or sometimes they phrase it slightly more palatable and ask what my 'day' job is.

Fuck off, writing is a real job, ignorant asswipe.

...is what I want to say. Instead, I smile and tell them politely that writing is, in fact, my day job.

Of course, that's not always the case. And while I don't want to downplay the importance of writing, especially for those of you that are trying to to turn it into a career, unfortunately we've got bills to pay. Which sometimes means working a job that has nothing to do with the writing dream to help support said dream.

I remember hiding behind the lathing machine as a CNC operator, furiously scribbling away on a scrap of lined paper I kept folded up in the pocket of my work pants. I remember secretly logging into my gmail as a secretary to email myself chunks of stories to recompile at home that night. Or popping out to my car on break while working at a research facility to chain smoke and type away on my laptop for fifteen minutes at a time.

We've gotta do what we've gotta do!

When Your Job Inhibits Your Writing

Do you work a demanding job that doesn't allow you writing time? I'm not going to tell you to shirk your work to write because I don't want to get you in shit with your boss, but there are always ways to get things done if you have the determination.

Making use of breaks is the best way. For jobs that have set breaks, such as fifteen minutes every two hours and whatnot, this is great, because you can utilize it like a Pomodoro-type situation. Fifteen minutes? Writing sprint! See how many words you can get out, and then next break, try to beat it!

Keeping a notepad handy is always great too, in case you come up with an idea or a snippet of dialogue that you don't want to forget. I've worked jobs that were so mentally demanding that I wasn't able to really think about my stories in depth, so if I had a random thought I was terrified my focusing on my jobs would erase that awesome idea. Jobs that require less mental capacity allowed me to think my plotlines and conversations to death, so I was less likely to forget the breakthroughs I had. So if you can, keep a notepad or even a piece of paper in your pocket or something so that you have access to it no matter what you're doing. (Safety permitting, of course!)

When Your Job Takes Up Too Much Time

If you're someone that works a lot of hours, or has a long commute, it can feel like there's just no time left in the day to write. In response to that, I say, make fucking time!

Long commute? Try dictation software or just record audio on your phone to get your ideas down. Alternatively, you could use your commute to listen to your writing via text-to-speech. I find it's easier to pick out clunky sentences or typos that way because the robot voice will read it phonetically.

If your commute is via public transit or you don't have to physically drive, then ta-da, you just unlocked a chunk of time to write! If you're uncomfortable using your laptop on the bus, try a notebook or your phone.

If you work long hours and are just dead at the end of the day, that's understandable! It's hard to force words out of an exhausted brain. But what about the mornings? Wake up fifteen minutes early on a workday and do a word sprint over your morning coffee. I know that extra bit of sleep is so tempting but you're working towards your dream goals here, come on, get up!

If you barely get any days off, and you feel like you need to catch up on house cleaning or spending time with your family or other things that you can't do on your work days, there's nothing wrong with carving out even just a half hour of writing time.

The key is always that no chunk of time is too little. And if you schedule it in, promise yourself that you're going to do that little bit each day, then you won't stress about not having time to do it. Because you're doing it.

mestrin did NaNoWriMo while selling his house and moving, canvassing twice a week for a local political candidate, freelance writing for a living, and cooking not only the house meals but a big Thanksgiving that month for all him and his wife's friends and family. I can vouch for the fact that he produced writing every day, because I read his NaNo book, Peter's Little Peter, and was not disappointed!

Michael says, "There's an expression about not losing the forest through the trees, but if you think about it, the daily grind for writers is all about the trees. The trick, I think, is to show up for something. Let's say you only have twenty minutes. What can you write in that time? Maybe you can only write 200 words. That's great! If you can write 200 words per day for 365 days, you'll have 73,000 words. That's a draft of a novel. Will it need a rewrite? Of course it will. But a novel written in 8-hour chunks will also need a rewrite. My point is, writers are better off thinking about the time they have to work with, even if it's just twenty minutes a day, than thinking about the final product. Put another way, finishing a big goal is really about showing up for small, achievable goals each day."

With realistic goals for time, and getting up a little earlier than normal, he was able to complete a fifty thousand word novel in a month, on top of all those other responsibilities! It was a first draft, of course, but now he's got a book to edit and polish up for publishing. And that's the best feeling in the world. This shit is doable no matter your schedule, you just have to have the drive.

When Writing IS Your Job... But Not the Writing You Want to be Doing

Some of us out there write for a living, but haven't yet monetized the writing we're passionate about. Making a living off of publishing our personal projects is the dream, but in the meantime we have to make bank. It's definitely easier to get paid for freelance writing or editing.

Though I really enjoy my work, it's still something that I have to finish up every day before I can move on to my own projects. And on days when I hit that 10k mark and then try to get into my creative zone... that can feel impossible.

Vianna Goodwin says, "I have to be very intentional about writing for myself because ghostwriting and freelancing pay the bills and my current work in progress won't generate money for at least a year, if ever." She adheres to a ghostwriting schedule of Monday to Thursday as her work week, with Friday through Sunday as family time, with a few hours on Saturday where her husband takes the kids so she can work on her own stuff. She also tries to do one-hour writing sprints for her own work every day so she can stay in her creative space and be productive with her passion projects.

This kind of blend works just as well as with any other job, and really gives you more freedom to decide when you're going to take a break from work and spend time on your own projects. The beauty of freelancing from home is that you set your own hours, so as long as you have the discipline to get your work done, fitting in personal writing should be a snap!

Michael has an excellent analogy for balancing his workload and his personal writing. He says, "I think of my workload like a stove. Let's say you have four burners. The trick is to use all four burners at once. But in terms of active use (writing) you can only do one thing at a time.

At any given time, work or a novel, or a query, or something else might be on the front burner. That's literally the project I'm typing at the moment.

A novel is a great back burner project. It takes time to come together. Everyday you'll stir the pot, add new stuff, and return it to the back burner.

My work assignments tend to occupy the front burners... because money. I usually have about 5-7 clients at a time. So I'm often juggling between 2 and 3 deadlines. That's a challenge, but it also helps because I know that I have a finite amount of time for everything. My wife likes to say that if you want something done, give it to a busy person. If I had just one client, I'd probably spend all day futzing around on their Op-Ed. But I don't have that luxury. I need to plan the meal, prep the meal, and cook the meal. Sometimes it's not what they ordered, and I need to do it again. But that's rare. Usually, the Op-Ed is either right on the money, or it needs a pinch of salt or garnish, so you rewrite.

The key is to keep all four burners going. The more you do that, the better sense you have of what you can do with your stove."

I love this because it really shows how it's possible for the brain to keep track of many different things at once. We might each have our own way of organizing or scheduling, but when you get right down to it, freelancing is all about juggling projects. If you can make one of the juggling balls (or stove burners) your own project, then it's easier to make sure that you have time for all of the things you want to accomplish in a day.

Activity

We're going to work with Michael's stove analogy, here. You've got two front burners and two back burners. What are you putting on them? What projects are going where? At what time of day do you turn on a certain burner (work, school), and when do you turn it off? Are you making the most efficient use of your stove at all times?

Draw a diagram if you have to, or make a list, or just visualize if that's your fancy. Maybe you have one of those fancy stoves with a fifth burner for keeping stuff warm. Maybe the oven is on, too. In any case, I'm hungry now.

Big big thank you to @mestrin for chatting with me, it was so interesting to learn about his process and how he manages his busy life around writing such kickass books. Check out his Wattpad page for some of the funniest shit on the internet.

And Vianna Goodwin has a middle-grade fantasy coming out at the end of 2019, The Book of Legends. You can find her on Twitter as @GoodwinVianna.

Do you have any hardcore time-saving tips for writing around working? Get sharing in the comments!