This entry is about the struggles of writing while still holding down a day job.

But first, an apology. I have, once again, been lax in updating this blog. I’ve been inundated lately with spam both here (in the comments) and in my mailbox and frankly I got so tired of dealing with it I just ignored it for a bit. Then there was the computer glitch that caused me to lose the second half of the X-Wing article.  We also had in the last twelve months two deaths in the family and an eight-month custody battle (success, don’t worry), so all-in-all, the blog kept being knocked down in priority.  And I’m not even going to proof-read this entry, sorry.

Anyway, on to the topic at hand.

Anyone who gives you this advice is a shithead.  Do not listen to them unless they happen to be your accountant and have pages and pages of detailed financial calculations that justify their advice.

I know a couple of writers who have quit their jobs to write full-time. If that’s something you’re reasonably able to do from a financial standpoint, that’s fantastic and I wish you the best. In my situation, and that of many others, it just can’t work: I have a mortgage, we have 50% custody of Crazy’s daughter and I account for 62% of our household income. There is no way I can quit my day job to focus on writing, it just can’t work financially. This is not a complaint, it’s just a fact. Some people have to deal with disabilities or crushing debt or mental illness, so comparatively speaking having to structure my writing time around a day job schedule isn’t that great a hardship.

However, it can also be difficult.

Like many, when I get home from work, I have other stuff to do – we have dogs who need to be walked and fed and since on average I get home from work forty-five minutes to an hour before Crazy, it only makes sense that I deal with that and get dinner underway. By the time all that is done, dinner is eaten and cleaned up, it’s usually close to eight o’clock. And I’m usually pretty goddamned tired, because life. Again, not a complaint, just a fact – life has been pretty emotionally draining of late, as you may have gathered from the opening section of this article.

More bullshit.  Sort of.

I do my best to keep a writing schedule, but often I can’t, at least not a daily one. I am very lucky in that I have a very supportive and understanding spouse. We have a deal that every Monday night is spa night for her and writing night for me (she doesn’t go to a spa every week, we’re not rich – she lights a bunch of candles, gathers up some Lush products and reads in the bath). Also, Lil Crazy has karate every Thursday, so that’s writing night number two.

We only have custody every second weekend, so I usually have a few hours on the non-custody Saturday or Sunday. I don’t often do both days, because as much as I enjoy writing, I also enjoy spending time with Crazy.

So that’s what I have – essentially two and a half writing days per week. This does change of course. Some weeks I’ll get on a roll on a Wednesday and stay up writing until two in the morning. I’m not at my best for work the next day, since I get up at six, but whatever – I made progress in my writing! Besides, I still do better work on those days than some of our employees do on their best days 😉

Now, those days I have outlined above are what I consider my “writing days.” They are the days I sit down and actually write, i.e. make headway in the progression toward the end of a project. Just about every other day of the week, whether in the evening or during my lunch break at work, I am either editing something I’ve writing, outlining the next section I want to write, or making general character and story notes for current or future projects. I have to do quarterly trips out of town for my job – usually two-day trips – and after a long day of meetings, there’s nothing that restores what little sanity I have than sitting in my darkened hotel room, chewing on my third slice of pizza, and making some shit up. Seriously. I rewrote an entire chapter of Radko’s War in my pajamas in the River Rock Inn in Rockland, Ontario a few months ago.

That’s why I said the title of this section is sort of bullshit.  TRY to write every day.  Even if it’s just a scratched out note here or there, or a paragraph about what the kitchen looks like on the grand spaceship Lollipop.  Or a one-sentence concept for your next project.

My stance has always been that’s it more important to keep the imagination active every day than it is to write every day.  Even if it’s not possible for me to sit down and write, I can always find some time to develop the story in my head.  In my prior day job, I had to be out on the road a lot — usually twice a week, with two- or three-day trips twice a month.  I used all that time as planning time — running through scenes in my head, figuring out dialogue, etc. — so that when I did finally have time to sit down and write, I already knew 75% of what I would be writing.

So I guess the bottom line for writing while maintaining a day job is set aside a reasonable amount of time each week for writing and beyond that, squeeze in what you can, when you can. While it would be great to say “I’m going to set aside writing time every day,” my life just can’t accommodate that right now. I look forward to the day it can, but that day is not today. Will projects take longer to finish if you don’t write every day? Of course they will, but that’s not always a bad thing. Writing a book is a journey, not a destination, and taking your time with your story will help you immeasurably in creating a finished product to be proud of.

Radko’s War, my science fiction novel which, all things going as planned, will be out by the end of 2016, started as a two-page outline sometime around 2005. The first draft of the novel was my NaNoWriMo project for 2013. I am currently going through one final edit for spelling, etc., and all that time gave me the opportunity I needed to tighten up the story and get it where it really needed to be.

Don’t ever confuse writing quickly with writing well.  Your project is your project and unless you’re writing it as a work-for-hire, or have a deadline imposed by an outside entity, the only one determining how quickly it needs to be finished is you.  Forcing a story too quickly is what turns so many projects into half-finished drafts that sit in your filing cabinet for years, or even worse, it turns them into shitty books.

Do not be your own Kryptonite.  Give yourself and your story the time you both need to get it right.

Writing a book is like getting married.  If you rush into it, you’re fucked.

   – DW