After studying the intense writing and day job schedules of some writers yesterday, a number of GalleyCat readers wrote in with more strategies for finishing your novel while eying the work clock.
Jay Varner had this approach while writing his upcoming memoir: “each morning I email myself the latest draft of the novel I’m currently writing. It sits in my inbox all day long at work, though I have never once opened the file. I only keep it there to remind myself of what I’m looking forward to that night. Each time I check my email during the day, there’s my book. By six every night, I’m home and at my desk writing, usually until nine or ten at night. I give myself Thursday and Fridays off.”
“The King’s Rose” novelist Alisa M. Libby sacrificed her vacations for her art: “When working on my first book with a full-time job, every week of vacation time I took was spent at home, elbow-deep in revisions. This isn’t a great way to be a well-rested or pleasant individual but it did give me the chunks of time I needed to focus on my book.”
GalleyCat reader and writer Joyce Reynolds-Ward wakes up early to write, edits at lunch, and then, “evenings are reserved for surfing, marketing my writing, research, and continued edits.”
David Rocklin, author of “The Luminist,” explained his strategy: “My day job, that of attorney, is quite stressful at times, but I’ve learned to carve out gaps in my day to map out the terrain that I want to cover at my next full-blown writing session, which generally comes on weekends or on trips (planes are great writing labs, I’ve found).”