Like a lot of authors, I have a day job, and it's a full-time+ gig. So making time to write is challenging even on the best days. Yes, I have a lot of privileges that help support my writing. I get to work in an office rather than at a physically strenuous job. I have no children yet, and I am not currently caring for an aging or differently-abled family member. My cats -- while demanding at times -- are better about supporting my writing than they might be. I have a lovely partner, El Hubs, who tolerates me spending huge chunks of time that we could be spending together that I instead spend staring at a blank page and hating myself.

I'm also lucky that, despite my student loans, I can make enough money from my one job that I don't have to work a second one like so many people. I get to effectively make writing my second job; its more than a hobby and I treat it as more than that. It's rightly described as a burgeoning secondary career, one that takes up a lot of me.

Which is why, when I tell you that it is hard to find time to write, let alone the energy to write, I am saying that with the full knowledge that it is so much harder for a lot of the writers out there that I love, people juggling jobs AND kids AND aging parents AND AND AND... Those people are basically superheroes, and will forever have my love and support.

But that is also why I am taking this time--when I should be putting away my laundry or feeding my cats or getting things ready for work tomorrow or, heaven forbid, working on my current book draft--to tell you that this is hard is because no matter how many times someone says it to me, I always need to hear it again. Finding the time, the energy, the emotional space to think and write is a difficult thing in a world that is always pulling at you. The phone is ringing, the email is piling up, there is someone yelling from the other room that the cat is having a hairball on the carpeting... Something else is always there, wanting a piece of you.

So how do you find that time/space/energy to write? Well, I am no expert, but after a few years of this, here are my recommendations for you:

1. Write, if you can, in the mornings.

Yes, it means getting up earlier, but it also means that you can avoid a lot of the routine interruptions that break up the hours during the business day or evening while using your best energy for your work, not someone else's. While I groan about it, I also feel better during my day if I know I took the time to do something important to me before I did a lot of other things I didn't want to do nearly as much. It also keeps me from trying to write during my most exhausted hours, when I find it the hardest to concentrate and focus.

2. Stay off the internet. I am terrible at this. "Five minutes," I tell myself. "It's for research! For this book!," I tell myself.

It is NEVER five minutes. It is NEVER for the book. Do whatever you have to -- write in a place with no internet, install an internet blocking program like Freedom, train a pet monkey to slap you if it sees you on the web, whatever it takes. But stay off the internet. It's a productivity killer to beat no other.

3. Set reasonable goals. Nothing will make you feel worse than trying to set a goal for yourself and then feeling like you've failed. I'm not saying, "don't set goals." I'm saying "set achievable goals.” Setting yourself up for failure has got to be one of the biggest pitfalls you can create for yourself.

I do this all the time. I tell myself grandiose things like "this year I will write 10,000 words every week! Every week, without fail." Or even more ridiculous things, such as "I won NaNoWriMo; I can obviously keep writing 50k a month every month!" Then, when I obviously cannot do that on top of everything else, and weeks go by, and I am barely able to keep up with my day job and clean underwear much less anything else, and I do not write a single solitary word, this is all I hear in my head:

DO NOT DO THIS TO YOURSELF. Every word you write, every single one, is a success. It is one more word in one more story that no one else has ever told before and cannot be told exactly like you will tell it. It is one more something out of nothing. You are Bastion in The NeverEnding Story. With one word, you could save the world. So do what is in your heart -- give the character at the center of your story a name, and stop The Nothing from taking one more minute from the lives your characters will live through you.

You can write one word. I know it. And in my experience, one word often becomes one sentence, or one paragraph, or one page. Sometimes writing that first word is all you need to start yourself writing.

Or maybe not. Maybe it's only one word. But that's okay. If you can only get one word on the page, make it a good one. Or even a sucky one. Either way, write one. Because that is one more word than you had yesterday. And with enough of those, you will eventually have a completed work made entirely out of the crazy stuff in your brain.

4. Do not compare yourself to other people.

One of the writers I admire most in all of the current writing landscape is Victoria/V.E. Schwab. She has the most insane work ethic of anyone I know. Anyone. In any field. More than any workaholic lawyer I know, more than the CEO at my company, more than my insane overworked El Hubs, more than anyone. We're talking Steve Jobs levels of work ethic. As a result, she has not one but several books in totally different genres and series coming out each year. Basically her life -- from my perspective -- is so full of work that she must be like the Dowager Countess:

And she doesn't even have the decency to write crappy books, either. They're all amazing. Crazy amazing. So when I look at her, with her travel and her organized life and getting a Masters degree in Scotland while writing NYT Bestsellers, I don't get jealous. She's too nice and humble and so out-of-this-world awesome for me to be jealous.

Instead I think, "You will never be her, so like, don't even bother." And you know what that makes me? MY OWN WORSE ENEMY. Victoria is awesome, but her awesome doesn't make my awesome less...awesome. (That there is some powerful writing. See how good I am at this?)

You can't be other people. You can only be you. And you are always, every day, being the best you that you can manage at any given moment. So accept that, and love yourself for it. Don't compare yourself to other people. Focus on yourself and the work because in the end, none of that comparing will get you anything but sadness and pain. Also, it will absolutely not get you a finished book.

5. Just try. So my most important piece of advice--no matter what else you take away from this post--is this, and I cannot emphasize it enough:

Everything you do in life is a risk, and anything that takes as much heart and soul and spirit as writing something and then letting other people read and judge it is super scary. There is no way around it. It feels like giving up a part of yourself to a world that, let's face it, can be really mean and cold and indifferent to its impact on you. But letting fear limit your life is about the saddest thing you can do. Don't worry about whether you will publish or whether your work will sell or even whether anyone will ever read your work other than you, out loud, to your dog. You can decide all that later. For now...WRITE.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a draft waiting for my one word for today.