Being a Full-Time Author Isn’t Easy (But It’s Not Impossible)
Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash
A full-time author isn’t the tortured soul penning out their tale in a barely lit basement with nothing but cobwebs for company. Being a career author, too, isn’t just taking your headphones and writing implements to your local coffee shop, working from open to close. It’s as much a job as any corporate nine-to-five.
Nonetheless, the writing part of it does have to get done. “So, how do career authors make things look so easy?” you might be wondering. It starts with the following practices.
Time Blocking
Despite what it may sound like, time blocking isn’t a minute-by-minute breakdown of your day. Instead, it’s a way for full-time authors to parse out when and where to spend their energy throughout their workday. For example, I’m not a morning person. My neurospicy brain doesn’t boot up until sometime between noon and two p.m. Yet, I have four dogs; sleeping past eight a.m. is a treat in this household.
Julie Martins says time blocking “allows you to set specific times for important tasks so you can effectively focus on your high-impact work.”
For current and future career authors, this means taking full advantage of the tools available to you. Task management software like Trello, hardcopy planners, and (multiple) digital calendars serve creative types well.
To get started with time blocking, audit your days over the course of a week or two. Track as many tasks as possible: when you do them, how long they take, and how you feel—physically and mentally—before and after you finish. A pattern will start to emerge. Your peak productivity times will start to stand out.
With these hard metrics, you can then start setting aside the periods of the day when you’re at your best. Because my energy doesn’t make an appearance until the afternoon, I start my writing time as the sun is on its way down. You can use your own peak times for the fun stuff, like writing your next queer romance novel.
Tracking Story Ideas as a Career Author
Scrivener is both the best and worst thing to happen to me as a writer. My autistic brain loves how easy it is to organize my works-in-progress. Research folders. Character, setting, and scene sketches. A choice between index-card/corkboard and outline views? Indeed, this queer editor–author is in heaven every time she opens her app.
On the other hand, my ADHD, bipolar 2, generalized anxiety, and major depression are quick to jump on the next Shiny Thing that escapes my subconscious. It’s in those moments that full-time authors have to hold their ground. When the writing gets hard for one story (or worse yet, dissolves into the ether for weeks at a time), it can be easy to let those other plot bunnies get their turn at the writing table.
At that moment, pull up K.M. Weiland’s words to use as motivation:
Never be hasty in abandoning the work you’ve already put into an existing story. And never take for granted how important it is to instill in yourself the priceless habit of learning how to see a story through to its arduous end.
At this point, desperate times call for desperate measures. That stack of blank notebooks in the corner? You know the one I’m talking about. Yep, that one. Pick the first one you see. That is now your story-idea notebook. Use it to jot down those shiny ideas that emerge as you draft your current novel. If pen and paper aren’t your jam, open up a Word or Google Docs file instead.
Being a career writer means you will always have more story ideas than you will have time to flesh them out and turn them into publishable novels. That doesn’t mean those ideas should be discarded. On one hand, a scene may come out of it that ends up in another novel. You can use it as a writing prompt, which consequently gives you a genius line of dialogue that kicks off a solid premise for a different story.
(I am totally not speaking from experience here…)
Photo by Brad Neathery on Unsplash
In the long run, it’s impossible to say how many hours I’ve spent writing. I’d wager enough to make me a full-time author (or close to it). Fiction or creative nonfiction, I can lose myself in crafting a story just as much as I do when I’m reading one. Once I found my way into the queer romance world? I’ve wondered more and more what life would be like as a full-time author.
I’m enjoying the ups and downs of my drafting process. My manuscript is just a tad shy of 53,000 words, yet I’m note even forty percent through my outline-in-progress. I’m satisfied with my role as a full-time story coach and developmental editor. Still, that doesn’t allow me much physical or mental capacity to devote huge chunks of my time to working on my manuscript. When I do, it’s because I made it a point to block off two hours here, thirty minutes there, or a whole workday to do so.
If you’re hoping to become a full-time author, now or in the future, try using time blocking and tracking your story ideas. First, you prove to yourself that you can push through the inevitable wordless days to come. Second, you’ll find that story ideas multiply the more you document them in a single location.
Full-time authorship isn’t easy. It’s not for everyone, either. Be that as it may, the tools are out there to make the journey a little easier to walk.
Reflecting On Your Story One Word At A Time!
