How to Find Time to Write

Where Fleur shares how she finds time to write, even when it seems impossible.

I’d love to be a writer, I just don’t have the time.

If you want to tick a writer off, you tell them that, I swear. I hear it anytime I tell people I’m a writer, from friends to the Uber dude who drives me to the airport after I speak at a conference.

Honestly, it doesn’t make me angry because I get it. It is hard to find time for something so lofty as to write a book, or any words at all. They say it takes 10,000 hours to master a craft. I’ve long surpassed that time, and I’m still learning—I’d argue that’s the best part of being a writer in the first place.

When it comes to writing, you’re always the student, never the master.

Back to the issue of time. None of us have unlimited time. It’s all about choosing that this is important to you. Think of Future You: would (s)he like to say they’ve written a novel in 2024? I’ll bet that would make the year great.

You can find the time if you really want to write. Here are some things I’ve done:

Get Up Early

For my very first novel, I genuinely didn’t have the time to write. I had two daughters who needed lots of time (I was homeschooling, long story), we were in the middle of a cross-state move (to Mississippi), staying in temporary apartment because we’d just sold the house… My life was utter chaos.

And I had a dream book deal—three books, a kid’s spy series, with HarperCollins Children’s. All I had was a partial written (this is not how books are usually sold, btw, but it’s not important for this part). Only it meant I had to write a novel draft in 6 weeks, very NaNoWriMo style. I had to find time.

So I got up at 5 AM to write, every day. It was rough, I’m not gonna lie. But there’s something magical about being awake before the rest of the world is. It’s quiet, and I can focus. It also requires serious discipline and ridiculous amounts of coffee.

I wrote and edited Double Vision, my first published novel, exactly that way. If you are trying to find time, getting up an hour early may be the best option for you. It’s rough but worth it.

Steal Time

This 5 AM thing started to get harder when my evenings became busier and I got older. So for the second and third books in the Double Vision series, I started to steal time. Basically, whenever I had a moment where I was waiting for a kiddo to take a gymnastics class, or they were busy with their schoolwork, I’d write. Twenty minutes here, twenty minutes there. I became really good at hyper-focusing.

I wrote about this Pomodoro technique (the fancier name) in this post.

It’s a good exercise for any writer out there. I had no time for my inner critic to catch up, no time to doubt myself or overthink. I just needed to write. Words on the page. At the time, I averaged about 1,000 words a day. Some days, it was 250 words, some days more. But I had momentum, which is the hardest to achieve. Once you start rolling that boulder up the mountain, just don’t stop…

If you don’t believe you can steal your way to a finished novel, I give you Double Vision: Code Name 711 and Double Vision: The Alias Men. These novels were written and edited entirely in stolen time. If I can do it, you can, too.

Finding Your Best Energy

Of course both of these methods require discipline and won’t work for everyone. But I challenge you to find an hour every day, if you want to FINISH a novel in 2024, like me.

When’s your best writing energy? Think about when you produce the best writing, like when you just forget about time. Are you a night owl, or more of an afternoon writer? Are you an early bird, like me?

Figuring this out will help you tremendously. For instance, I’m not good any time after 3 PM, so I plan my day to have less creative activity during that time (like answering emails). My best writing energy is in the morning.

Join Me

Right now, I’m writing every morning from 6 to 7 AM. That way, I can spend the rest of the day on other work I do, like editing that YA mystery, freelance writing and editorial projects, speaking, and marketing. Author life is busy, but one hour a day is something I can do.

My goal is to have it written by April 30. I’m on track at 15K words right now.

Your Weekly Floof

Floof prefers it if early mornings are for lap time, please and thank you.

How do you carve out time to write?