Five Tips on How to Write with a Full-Time Life

I’ve spent the past eight years learning to write through full-time corporate jobs, rearing children, an MFA Program, and moving across the country about a million times. Like many people, I didn’t discover writing until I was already deep in all kinds of responsibilities — debt, a full-time job, a marriage, and my first daughter. I wanted to write, but it felt as if a mountain stood in between reality and my dreams.

I had a binary choice to make. I either had to learn to write WITH these responsibilities, with all the demands on my time, energy and attention, or I wasn’t going to pursue being a writer. Faced with that choice, I fought like hell for my dream.

To try and sum up eight years of learning, failing, getting up, and getting the sh*t kicked out of me in a single article is impossible, but I’ve compiled these life-changing strategies in hopes of equipping other writers in the fight for their dreams.

But along the way, I’ve learned these five critical truths to remember no matter where you are in the writing journey.

1. Your beliefs about your purpose count more than your writing skill

I wasn’t born a writer. I didn’t even really get into books until I was in my mid-twenties. But, as soon as I scratched out my first short story, I believed that I was supposed to tell stories. My belief in my purpose drove me to acquire the skills I needed and build the disciple I needed to keep going.

What do you believe? Do you believe your story is a gift? That you must tell it to be whole? It’ll take that level of belief to get that sucker over the finish line. I know this can feel tacky, but even a simple intention like, “I (insert your name), will finish this project…” can be incredibly powerful.

2. Managing your energy is more important than time

People love to say that time is the most valuable resource, but they are wrong. Your most valuable resource is energy. Look at it this way: I can have all the time in the world, but no energy, and get nothing done and be miserable. Inversely, I can have just a little time, but be filled with energy, and I will accomplish incredible things. Energy feeds attention, and attention produces results.

To be a writer with a full-time life, you need to manage your physical, emotional, creative, intellectual, and spiritual energy.

The easiest way to take concrete steps to manage your energy is to ask, for each of the above categories, “what adds to my (physical) energy and what spends my (physical) energy?”

As an example, I found that nutrition was a major ingredient in my physical energy. If I ate a certain whole-foods diet, I found I was physically way more alert in my morning writing sessions. I also realized if I drank a single drop of alcohol the night before I wanted to write, my productivity dropped by 43%(to see how I figured out that exact number skip down to point #4… so yes it’s ACTUALLY 43%).

When you go through this process, you’ll end up with a kind of energy-audit. You can download this one for free to get you started. If, say, your intellectual energy is depleted, how do you fill it back up? How can you better manage the different energy categories in life so you don’t bottom out?

This energy map is a massive tool in your toolbox. I am weekly checking my toolbox, both to help me recover energy where I am depleted, but also brainstorming new methods to add to my energy.

3. Process is key

Let’s clear the air. Process is not a dirty word when it comes to creativity. A process is just a tool by which you can consistently create the results you want. If you are a writer and working a full-time job, maybe you can survive without a process. If you add another big component (marriage, kids, health challenges, etc.), I think the need for process is amplified. The more you add complexity to life, the more precious your time to do the work, not figure out how to work.

Process empowers writers to automate practical details and put precious mental energy into creative work. Utilizing process means creating the tools and framework to help you recreate the magic going forward. You should not be wondering how you go about writing a scene, drafting a character, or any other task you do over and over and over again. If you come to the desk each day and have no idea what you’re going to work on, how you create, how you edit, etc., you are working at a fraction of your potential. I am not saying you can’t live as a pantster, but you shouldn’t be spending repeated energy on the how of writing.

After eight years, I have templates in place for the big parts of a story — plot, character, scene, and deep-story. I am not tied to the templates, as I am a mix of pantser and plotter, but they are like the scaffolding of my work. I take as long as I need to get the building blocks in place by using this one-page Scene Planning Template, then I go for it.

By setting up the framework for my creativity, the end result is a way tighter scene, fewer rewrites, and I am not constantly asking, “WHY AM I EVEN WRITING THIS SCENE?” When I leave my work each morning to dive into the responsibilities of the day, I know exactly where to pick up and continue. No time wasted and no redundancies.

4. Measurement is critical

Let’s say I’ve convinced you thus far that energy and process are vital to creativity and you’ve taken steps to put the practical on repeat. Then one day you wake up, sit down to write and realize you are completely burnt out and suffering from writer’s block. This is where measurement comes into play. You must learn to find the key measurements of your creative life. The variables of your life become output levers. You can pull on some and let go of those that don’t serve you. Since you don’t have much time, so whatever you can do to increase your productivity is a win.

For example, I used to wake up at 4 am because I thought more hours to write would equal more output. But after measuring my results and noticing dismal physical and mental energy, I began sleeping for an extra hour until 5 am and producing the same amount in less time. I had the data in place to feel confident in that choice.

The simplest way to begin measuring the variables of your life is by keeping a daily journal. Once you’ve identified the variables that influence your writing life, you can record and rate your productivity. Remember, time is of the essence so plan to spend 30 seconds each morning to fill it out and about 30 minutes each month reviewing the data.

5. Getting back on the horse is more important than staying on the horse

If you have written for more than a week at a time, you know that the writing life is just really hard. There will be soul-crushing setbacks. There are entire scenes, chapters, and characters that need to be scrapped and rewritten. Or sometimes entire books that need to be burned. It hurts. At times it sucks.

Most writers quit writing because they can’t get back on the horse anymore. They get hit in the face with a 2x4 one too many times, and they lose belief in themselves (see truth #1).

I’ve thought a lot about why writing is so much harder than anything else I’ve ever done. Maybe it has to do with the fact that writing is an expression of my soul. Steven Pressfield’s “War of Art” supports the idea of resistance wanting to keep you from doing your work.

Whatever it is, when you are writing and living a full-time life, there are going to be hard times. You are going to question if you belong in this game, if you can really write that book, if you are smart enough to work through the plot. I’ve been there and questioned whether or not I belonged in the arena at all.

The answer is “hell yes.”

If you’re a writer, you have to write. If you don’t believe you have to or your soul will shrivel up, go back to truth #1 until you believe it, then proceed. You may get knocked down, you may be exhausted, you may have kids that are all over the place, a partner who doesn’t support you, a health crisis, a mid-life crisis. There are always going to be a million reasons not to get back on the horse, not to show up at the desk the next day. But as writers, we can only put one foot in front of the other. We can show up one day at a time and do our work. If you can get through the pain, you can get to the other side.