Designing My Writing Schedule

I have a Day Job, that I love, that demands a lot of my time. Writing is my passion. I'm happiest when I'm writing and when I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing.

To be able to write effectively and produce quality work, I had to make a writing schedule.

As an ex-pantser, a schedule is all new to me. I didn't know what would be coming so I used to just write as I went. However, I have planned this novel down to the tiniest arc, so I knew what needed to happen in each chapter. (Subject to creative change. - When I say I had planned it, if the story went another direction, I just re-planned accordingly.)

The main thing I had to consider when I prepared my writing schedule was the fact that I had to be Kind to Myself. I am one person and I can only do so much. I have children, a job, family commitments. All of this needs to be considered when planning your schedule.

I planned to write roughly 1000 words each writing session. For me, this is a manageable number, especially using my plan to help me. I type very quickly so I knew I could manage to write that many words.

I don't have a picture of my writing schedule but the editing one is here:

With my writing schedule, I didn't plan to write at the weekend. If I found I had time or had some ideas, I did add them in here and there, but mainly the weekends were family time. (This wasn't true for my editing schedule but I feel as if that's a different process.)

I factored in days where I was seeing friends or eating out and wouldn't be able to commit as much time to writing on that day.

My writing plan was realistic, kind and achievable. I had a deadline in mind. I didn't want to be writing the first draft in September so it had to be finished in August. But, baring that in mind, I was able to create a schedule that was something I could stick to without exhausting myself or taking time away from family and friends, or just chilling out.

I have to admit, I did sacrifice Me Time to make sure The Book was finished. I think it was worth it. And I love writing!

In a nutshell, for me, my writing schedule was

• realistictic
• achievable
• kind

For example, a typical week would go like this:

Monday
- write scene 3 (1000 words-ish)
Tuesday
- read scene 3, write scene 4 and 5 (1000 words-ish together)

And so on. Having a schedule to follow made me more focused, meant that I had a target for that day and that I wasn't pressured to write the entire book in the evening, squished between putting the kids to bed and my bedtime.

It doesn't always work, however. I have written a querying schedule but I was back to work in September and found that I'm too exhausted to stick to my schedule. I'm going to work on it.