Parent Writing Schedule

When my children were small—and even as they grew older—I struggled to find a writing schedule that worked most days of the week. After much trial and error, I would hit upon a schedule that allowed me to write nearly two hours per day. Bliss!

That “bliss” lasted a very short time usually—until I once again had morning sickness, or someone was teething, or my husband switched to working nights, or someone started school, or someone else went out for three extra-curricular activities and we lived in the car after school and weekends.

It was many years before I realized there is no one right way to schedule my writing. The “right way” (by my own definition) is simply the schedule that allows me to get some writing done on a regular basis.

v Be an early morning writer. Even if you’re not naturally a morning person, you can train yourself to be one. It was never my natural inclination, but today I can’t imagine sleeping in, even if I tried. There are so many pluses for writing early: the house is quieter, the phone is quieter, no one comes to the door, it’s not time to cook or run errands, and you can still parent or go to your day job at the normal time. Morning is a fresher time to write for most people. The added bonus is that once it’s done, it’s done for the day! You don’t have to keep trying to squeeze it in somewhere.

v Be a night-time writer. If your biological clock says you’re an owl, and there’s no changing it, then write after hours. It’s also quiet on the tail end of the day. The kids are asleep, the spouse is watching TV or reading, the phone is quieter, no one rings the doorbell, and you’re finished with cooking and running errands and your day job. Actively plan to finish up necessary chores (homework checking, making school lunches) before your set time for writing—and then write.

v Be an office writer. If you have any kind of day job, chances are that depriving yourself of morning sleep won’t work. And you may be too drained from your job at night to do much writing. So learn to write a bit before work (if you can get there early), during lunch or scheduled breaks, and then stay at your desk (or in your parked car with your laptop) after work for half an hour. If you have a private office—or just a quiet place before others show up for work—consider getting there early with your writing materials and/or staying a bit late after others go home.

v Be a nose-to-the-grindstone writer. Suppose for whatever reasons, you can’t write much at all during the week. You have newborn triplets and take care of your parents as well, run a home daycare, and are the PTA chairman. You hate to write in short spurts, but given the opportunity, you can hunker down and write for eight hours without coming up for air. If that’s your style, make your schedule around that. Have your spouse or a babysitter do a day of child care for you on weekends and hole up at the library (or hide in the attic) for the day.

v Be a mini-block writer. This is how I wrote for at least two years. Ten minutes at a time. Occasionally fifteen. I grabbed bits and pieces when I could. I wrote on the typewriter sometimes, or on a pad of paper in my purse in the doctor’s waiting room, or scribbled on a tablet while sitting in bleachers waiting for an event to start. I could write a whole page in fifteen minutes, if I took time to think it through before I sat down at the keyboard. It adds up. I wrote my first five middle grade novels this way.

If you want to write badly enough, you’ll find a way. Just remember that even when you find the perfect schedule, it’s only perfect for right now. As circumstances change, often our writing schedules have to change. Experiment with all the different types of schedules and see which ones work best for you, given the circumstances you’re presently living with.