The Trials Of An Indie Author: Fitting The Writing In

THE TRIALS OF AN INDIE AUTHOR: FITTING THE WRITING IN

One thing you learn quickly as an indie author is that it's a lot of hard work. That's not to say that the traditional route is easy either, but since I've only ever been an indie author, it's the only one I can reliably talk about. When it comes to being indie, you've got to write the books, revise/edit the books, publish the books, and do all the marketing for the books That's a lot even if it doesn't sound like it. And a big way to be successful and stay successful is to keep writing and publishing.

Now when I first starting writing seriously, I didn't have any publishing plans beyond the usual, get an agent, get a publisher and boom off we go. This was 2001, so there wasn't anything like social media and indie publishing to the degree there is now. The only real option for me as to go the traditional route, and there was little help in getting there. My point isn't to show you how old I am, but to point out that for a lot of that time, I kept writing. I don't mean that I banged out as many books in a year as I do now, but I did keep plugging away at my stories and seeing where they'd take me.

Because of that, I ended up with a bit of a backlog or buffer zone when it came time for me to actually start publishing. As it stands now, I have written double the amount of books I have published, so there's little for me to be worried about in running out of books, but that doesn't mean that working to fit the writing in, isn't something that appears on my schedule and the like.

If you follow me on other social media, or you've been around for a while, you'll know that I do manage to fit the writing into my schedule consistently and continually throughout the year. I am, at the moment into my third set of two books for the year. I won't finish these until January time, but I think almost six books in a year is a pretty good place to be, especially as I've also managed to fit in revision, editing and the release of book twenty-one coming in November (pre-order here!)

So I thought that today I would give you a few tips on how to make time for the writing, when you have all those other things to get done as an indie author. After all, without the books, and without writing new ones, then you're not going to have much of a career.

#1 SCHEDULE WRITING TIME
I know this isn't possible for everyone, so don't worry it won't be my only tip of this kind. I know that for some people, their lives are not conducive to scheduling and planning the way that I do it. Though if you are able to set aside an hour here and there, then I really do find that it works well and allows for me to get my head in the right mindset for sitting down and just writing. I've found that knowing when I'm going to be writing lets me set myself up for a successful writing session, same as knowing when I'll be revising and the like. So if this is something you haven't tried and think will work for you, then go ahead and do this. It can be a life changer when it comes to organising your time.

#2 AIM FOR X WRITING SESSIONS A WEEK/MONTH
This might sound like scheduling but it's really not. This is more fluid and allows you to fit things in when you're able without the pressure of knowing it has to be at a certain time of day. If you're able, then think about a certain target to hit, whether that's words, or pages, or chapters, or whatever. This was something that I used to do before I got into planning, and while I didn't always have consistent success with it, that doesn't mean that it won't work for you. It feels, to me, more like setting aside time when you have it, to sit down and write for x amount of time, and x amount of times a week or month.

#3 A MIXTURE OF THE TWO
Sometimes things change, and sometimes you can be working one way and all being fine, and then life happens and things have to be switched around. The point of all of this is to ease your stress, not add to it, so if you find that one works and then for some reason it doesn't, don't be afraid to do a mixture, or to change things around. The idea is to give you time to write and create and if the only way you can do that is by doing it one way for one week or month, and then moving things around to do it another way a different time, that's completely okay! Find what works for you, that's the important thing here.

So yeah, those are the ways I've used over the years to fit my writing into my busy schedule. I may have leaned more to the first than the second these days, but that's just how my brain works. I like to know what I'm going to be doing and when, but I have, at times, done a bit of the second to be able to get back on track. Good luck with your writing!

Any questions? Lemme know in the comments!

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