What I mean by “Balancing Writing with a Writing Life” is balancing your writing when your life is already filled with writing. For example, I am a high school student. I love to write my fiction stories and creative essays, but I also have to write essays and stories for school, and a lot of the time I feel creatively drained when I come home and sit down to write. Sometimes I can push through it, and force myself to write, but a lot of the times I give up for the night and say I will write tomorrow instead. I mean I already wrote an essay on Lord of the Flies for English today, so how about I give myself a break for today? This is okay some of the time, but if you let it, it will become a pattern of you putting off your writing due to the other writing you do daily. It may be because of school or your job so you have to do it, so here are some tips on balancing out your writing.

Set Aside Time in the Morning or Late Evening

This is obvious, but I had to get it out of the way. If you feel too drained when you come home from work or school to write, write in the morning before you go to work or school, or write a few hours after you get home. I know I feel super drained when I come home so I turn on Netflix for an hour or so, or YouTube or even sometimes read, and then by six or seven in the evening I am feeling better and ready to write! Don’t let your tiredness stop you, just allow yourself the few hours to rest because there is still time in the day to write.

Make a Writing Plan

If you have a plan for your writing and you know where you want to go that day, it will be so much easier to sit down at your computer and write. You know where you have to go, what plot points you have to hit and where you can end for the day. Without a plan, you will feel lost and have no idea how to start (well sometimes) and guess what? You will probably just give up for the day and try again tomorrow. But no, we don’t want that. Have a plan, write it and then you are done for the day!

Dividing Up Your Writing Time

While your writing for school or work is really important, and you should put a lot of focus on it, your own writing is also really important because it is what you love! It doesn’t deserve to be pushed off to the side. There are some exceptions of course, like if you have finals or really important report you need to give to your boss tomorrow, but if its just homework, don’t let it bully you into leaving your writing for tomorrow. Divide up your time. Work on your paper for thirty minutes and then switch over to your own writing project. Do whatever feels right to you but just don’t ignore your writing, otherwise you won’t get anything accomplished with it!

Replenish Your Creative Well Often

I looove replenishing my “creative well”, as us artists say. It is fun and inspiring and relaxing. Replenishing your creative well can mean a variety of things like: blogging, reading, watching TV/movies, listening to music…really anything like that. It is so important to do this daily, especially after using your brain all day (whether you are using it creatively or not), but sometimes we get carried away and spend too much time replenishing our creative wells…In my opinion spending anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour is a good amount, but much more than that can lead to you never writing. Know when it is too much and you will be fine!

Partake in Activities That Do Not Require Much Creativity 

For me, this means going to the gym or hanging out with friends, and it is my time in the day where I can let loose and just relax. I am not worrying about my school work or feeling guilty about not writing at that exact moment, I am just existing! So try this out. Spend again, like an hour or so participating in something that doesn’t involve your creativity as much as writing, or even much of your brain. Go for a run or a walk, go shopping at the mall…the list is endless.

Those are 5 tips/tricks to balancing your writing when you already live a writing infused life. I hope they were helpful and that you enjoy it, and if you did please like this blog post so I know! Also, if you want me to check out your blog please put it in the comments because I am on the hunt for new blogs 🙂

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Twitter: @zoermathers