Time Enough to Write by Jenna Jaxon

This time of year—back to school, that is—I find it hardest to get back into the rhythm of my writing schedule. During the summer I can pretty much write whenever I want: stay up until 2 or 3 am and sleep until noon, or get up at some insane hour (like 6am) and write while everyone else is asleep.

Once school starts, however, my writing time gets sucked away until I can figure out how I can squeeze it in on lunch hours, between classes, or between classes and rehearsals. My schedule at the moment includes 9:00am or 9:30am classes five days a week, which means I have to quit writing by 1am so I can get enough sleep to function. I have a couple of hours in the afternoons between my last class and my rehearsals, when I hope to continue writing, however, until the play is over, in early October, my writing will unfortunately be curtailed.

That or I will figure out how to do with less sleep.

So this Labor Day weekend is a last “Hurrah!” for non-stop writing. I plan to write into the wee hours this morning, grab a few hours of sleep, then get up and barrel through at least two chapters. Monday we have an outing planned, but I’m going to beg off driving so I can sit in the back seat with a pen and legal pad and continue writing long-hand while we head to visit friends. I hope to do the same thing coming home, to squeeze the last few hours of writing out of this holiday weekend.

I have a deadline at the end of this month, so I’m trying to be very careful about other things that take me away from my WIP. I’m becoming super sensitive to things not writing related that take up my time, like grocery shopping, laundry, cooking, paying bills, and cleaning. Things like social media that suck the time right out of your day. Even very enjoyable things, like a pedicure, I’ve put on hold because it takes me away from writing for too long. Television is a thing of the past for me (the one exception is Outlander, however, it won’t be back until next year, so I’m good) and I went to see a movie last weekend (No Escape), so that will hold me for a while.

Do any of you other authors sacrifice these creature comforts to make time to write? Or do you carve out time for you no matter what?

Filed under: A writer's life, Craft, Jenna Jaxon