Fitting it In: Writing With a Day Job

I was a teacher for 35 years, and had three children (one of whom is severely mentally disabled, now a young adult,) a very needy mother and a husband who got home from his job at 9:00 PM every night, so ...

I got up early, like you, and wrote from 4:30 AM until I left for work around 6:00. (I also had to fit in making lunches, showering, getting dressed, warming up the cars, laying out clothes for the kids and blah blah, etc. etc.)

I wrote on weekends; I trained my two older children to leave me alone when I was writing. They often fell asleep to the clackety-clack of my Olivetti business typewriter. When child No. 3 came along, he was often with me, at my feet, playing while I wrote.

Thing is this, and you're finding it out, too, if you want to write, you find a way. If a person loves golf, they golf: rain or shine, demanding job or not, large family or small - they GOLF.

Same goes for writing, and more power to you for figuring out ways to fit it in.

It sounds like you've got a decent system. 500 words in the morning and 1500 on a weekend is not by any means a bad output at all.

I've found when I'm busier I get more done because my brain is in work mode and when I sit down to write I make the best use of the time that I can. The only danger with this, and it goes in hand with the whole "write every spare moment" approach: burn out. I agree with the principle behind write every moment but I have hit some pretty major lows while trying to do that. If you can, great. But do not do it at the expense of your health or sanity. It isn't worth it and your writing will suffer.

Which brings me back to where you are now. If you're happy with your output quality and quantity-wise, keep at it and it will come! Otherwise make small tweaks until you find something that's balanced for you. Just don't forget that we can always write more words. Like anything in writing, that doesn't always mean we should.

Best of luck!

I kind of want to thank everyone who's shared their ways of writing while having a day job (and kids). I have both, a very demanding day job and college classes in the evening. I'm also a night person so waking up very early is extra difficult for me. So I just write whenever I have time. Mostly I do it daily, unless I have an exam that day or if I'm gone the whole day otherwise and go straight to sleep after getting home. I use my weekends for writing, too. With so little time I can write about 120 000 words yearly. It's not much, but it's the best I can do at the moment.

I truly wish I could write full time, but I'm far from it right now. Maybe someday.

Edit. That word count includes everything, every short story, etc. Not just one manuscript.