Writing Takes a Ton of Time. Be Realistic About It

In this video, I share my thoughts about why writing is hard. It’s not so much about the craft, but rather about being realistic about the time necessary to make both the writing and other responsibilities related to it work. The more realistic you are about the hours you have to commit to, the easier it will be to plan, reduce your stress, and crank out the best drafts possible.

The big point I want to convey is that writing is not simply writing anymore. It’s social media. It’s marketing. It’s invoicing. It’s analytics. And so, if you assume that all of that has to be done ON TOP OF the regular 40-hour work week of writing itself, you can see what a commitment this takes. You certainly can choose not to spend 40 hours a week writing, but given that that means your time to press extends, and given that experts now say you should be cranking out a book every 12 – 18 months, cutting the week down isn’t necessarily realistic.

Now, on the one hand, this is great, because it means those who aren’t serious about wordsmithing aren’t going to stick it out. You’ll end up with people who really want the job. On the other hand, I know that there are people out there who have real dreams about this industry and who are busting tail trying to make the math work but can’t. And I don’t like that writers are giving up on those dreams because there’s not a pragmatic way for them to do everything that has to be done. Especially now, when you consider how writers typically make around poverty level, and when you acknowledge it’s hard even for a “better” job to bring in enough for rent or a mortgage, forcing writers to this kind of timeframe is particularly harsh.

What should we do to fix it?

[Transcript summary]

Welcome, everybody. I’m Wanda Thibodeaux of takingdictation.com. And my message today is just about why it’s kind of hard to be a writer. And I don’t mean that the craft is so hard. Writing itself is hard. Anybody can learn how to write better. And I, of course, encourage you to use as many strategies and techniques to improve your craft.

The reason why writing is hard, to me, is the fact that there are all of these things that take up extra time. So, let’s say you have a 40-hour week. You’re spending 40 hours a week writing. You’re doing your job. But then on top of that, you have all these peripheral things. You have marketing. Maybe if you have clients, you have billing or administrative things. You have queries to do. And so, by the time that you get all of those other things done, you’re looking at 60 to 80 hours a week. Not even kidding. I’ve done that routinely. And then, of course, you have a life outside of that. You have a family. You have other things you have to do.

So, just from the time constraint, that is where it gets really challenging, because you have to take time to rest. If you do not rest, you won’t be creative, because you are just exhausted. And creativity requires you to not be stressed out. You can’t be tired all the time. That’s not going to help you.

So, you have to find this balance between how you juggle all of those things, and that’s very difficult to do. And for some people, that means hiring other people. Maybe you hire somebody to do the marketing. For some people, it means, “Okay, I’m not going to take a 40-hour week to write. I’m going to write less, but I’m going to market it really well,” or whatever the case may be. But you find what works for you.

But I just want you to understand it is very normal to have all of those other things on the side that you have to deal with. And you just have to accept that that is part of the job. I don’t like that it’s part of the job. But in terms of time management and being realistic, understanding that that is how these things go, communicating to other people that maybe you’re not going to have as much time as you thought, or that they would want, that’s really important.