: Re: How much time do you find you have to commit to daily writing to see results? I've wanted to publish a book for a long time (since I was 10 or 11), but never bothered to do any serious

@Kimberly114

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Many writers have managed to write their first novels in little chunks of a few minutes between other task, during their lunch breaks, by getting up in the wee hours of the morning, or late at night, when the kids are asleep.

The common wisdom is that if you really want to write, you can write, no matter how little time you have or how much else you have to take care of in your life.

But I have found that for me that is not so. I have tried to write while I was studying, while I was working full time, while I was raising my children – and I never managed to get anything done. I was becoming increasingly unhappy, and I even sat down regularly to write, but I could never get into it.

The only way to write for me is this:

I need five hours in the morning, without any other tasks before I begin. If I have to do anything before I write, I cannot write on that day.
I need these five hours every day, including weekends. If I cannot write for two day or longer, I need three days to get back into writing. The first two day I sit at the keyboard, trying to get back into the story world, remembering where I was, what I wanted to write next.
I need the afternoons off, to replenish my writing energy and imagination. If I work in the afternoons, after writing, I loose the connection to my writing.
I need three months of this to finish a novel. During this time I barely have the energy to clean my flat, go shopping, cook, take care of my kids. I have to let everything else go and immerse myself completely.

If you can write while having a job and a family, you are lucky. I cannot. I have tried, but my mind just doesn't work that way. I'm a project type of guy. So what I do is:

Work until I have saved enough money to get my through the next six months. Then stop working.
Write for three months, take a month off, revise for another month, then one month of finding the next job.
Repeat.

I'm living at poverty level. I've tried not to write and build a career, but I couldn't do that. I must write. So that is how I live.

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