Adapting to Change
One of the top skills a writer with a day job needs
Busy Mondays require the biggest coffee cup I own.
When you have a regular full-time job, you may find that some seasons of the year are busier than others. When you are in a busy season at work, other duties may get shifted to other people while you take on extra assignments or projects (or, if you work for the state, you get to continue to do it all and just work a lot of overtime and get “paid” in time-and-a-half comp time, which btw is very different from actual pay in that it does not cover any actual bills that people still seem to expect me to pay even though I have less time to work at the second job that usually covers them, on account-a the overtime I’m working without any extra pay at my full-time job, but that’s a long, dramatic sermon for another time).
Likewise, when you have a regular full writing schedule, you may find that some seasons are busier when you take on a new project. Unless you have figured out how to actually bend time to your will so that you have more of it than anyone else on the planet, this means you need to adapt your regular schedule to make room for the extra writing you’re doing. Either you have to find more time to write or you have to decide which of your normal practices you’re putting on hold while you’re in project mode.
This adaptation is a constant in my writing life. I like to pretend that there are more regular seasons than project seasons, but the more I learn about what works best for my productivity, the more I realize that project mode is more my norm than my exception.
This is especially true now that I’m becoming more intentional about ongoing education and balancing writing, reading, and creative community.
So what’s a writer to do? As you might suspect, the answer is different for everyone.
For example, I am single and child-free, and this autonomy gives me some flexibility with my time that others with partners and live-in families may not have. It also means, though, that I am the sole person responsible for my household and its upkeep/bills (no splitting rent, utilities, internet, etc., for me), so until my writing can cover them, I know that it will always be a secondary priority at best. I also know how easily distracted I get and thus how easy it is for me to fall out of a habit - even if it’s one I’ve cultivated for years - if I let go of it for even a month or two. My Club Pilates attendance never recovered from the pandemic shutdown (RIP to a fun, helpful habit).
With these parameters in mind, I am in the process of reorganizing my regular writing schedule to account for the inevitable projects I take on throughout the year, such as my DIY MFA, my 31-days series I write every October, NaNoWriMo in November (and Camp NaNoWriMo in April and/or July), and various collaborations with my art collective and other friends throughout the year. This reorganization will likely involve several things:
Increasing the number of hours I regularly set aside each week for writing
Scheduling more writing/creative retreats throughout the year
Letting go of some longstanding writing practices that are not as helpful as they used to be
Streamlining a few clunky practices so that they become more useful
I may share more details as I hone my writing schedule, but real talk - it may just be too dull a process to relive long enough to write about it. If I stumble onto something particularly innovative, I’ll be sure to loop you in, though.