How To Start Writing In Your Spare Time

When you’re someone that dreams of writing, that dream never dies. It stays with you. Even when you go off into your career, when you forget about all things creative, and when you go off into your adult life. It’s still there.

Because writing comes with so much passion. When you love to read and create and get lost in an imaginary world, it’s only natural that your mind will often come up with characters and ideas, plots and plot twists. So whether you were a budding author as a child, or you were someone that just wanted to write features and stories and snippets from your life, you will still have that feeling until you put pen to paper. Or, perhaps more aptly, fingers to keyboard.

So, you might be interested in writing in your spare time with the intention of turning this into a career. Or selling a story. Or an article. But how do you do it? And how should you start? Well, let's find out.

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Just Start

First, you just need to get started. Right now! When you’ve finished reading this post, open up your word processor or your Google Doc and just get writing. Getting started is often the hardest part, so if you just do it, you’ve beaten that hurdle.

Set Aside The Time

But at the same time, you need to make sure that you’re actually doing it. Don’t just get started, write once, and then stop. You need to find time to write by making time for it. So schedule it in. Whether it’s an hour in the morning, on your lunch break, or in the evening, slot it in. Because when it’s in the diary and the time is set aside for it, you will write.

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Get Into A Routine

You then will want to make sure that you’re being consistent with it. So get into a routine of writing an hour a day or whatever you can commit. Because the more of a routine you get into with your writing, the easier it will be to build up a momentum.

Take It Seriously

But then there may also come a time where you feel ready to take this whole writing thing seriously. Maybe you want to look at online jobs from home where you can write to make money and then write in your spare time creatively too. Or maybe you want to think about getting a pitch together for a book proposal? No matter what you want to achieve, you will start to realize that there is a point where things get a little bit more serious for you.

Do Something Big

Finally, you may even want to make more of a move than that. You might want to do something big and exciting and different. Maybe starting a blog and publishing some of your ideas there could be perfect for you? Or maybe you would love to write your own book and self-publish it? Just make sure that you have some kind of goal that you’re working to, that something big you’re chasing that can help to keep you on track.

What are you waiting for?

3 Reasons To Write Your Novel Quickly

Many aspiring novelists spend literal years just creating the first draft of their first manuscript. The struggling, aspiring artist, who hates his day-job and has been working on his masterpiece for 20 years, is a recurring trope in film and television.

But there are a lot of good reasons to not spend 20 years working on your “masterpiece”, not least of all because most authors have to do a fair bit of throat-clearing before they become good at their craft, and sitting on one book for a huge chunk of your life is a poor way of achieving this.

The author Joseph Conrad, originally Polish, wrote one of the great classics of the English language without even being a native English speaker. Resources like Effortless English Club could help you to do the same. But the point is, you need to get started, rather than procrastinating endlessly.

Great authors from Jack London to Stephen King have advocated a prolific no-holds-barred writing schedule. Here are some reasons why you should follow their example and write your novel quickly.

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It will help you to get into a “flow” state

Often, writers can become their own worst enemies, by obsessively over-analysing every single word they’ve put down on the page.

While this kind of analysis is useful, to a point, you should generally save it until after you’ve completed your first draft, at which point you can worry about ironing out some of the untidy bits, and polishing your novel into the masterpiece you want it to be.

Your first job, however, is to get the basic bones of the story assembled, and to put everything down in written form so that you have the “clay” that you can then fashion into a masterpiece.

Writing fast helps you to enter a flow-state where you’re not constantly second-guessing yourself, but are, rather, getting the words out.

It will help you to summon up your “muse” on a regular basis

Jack London is frequently quoted as having said that “you can’t wait inspiration, you have to go after it with a club”. 

There’s an idea among many creative types that you need to wait around for inspiration to strike, at which point you produce great art in a haze of mystical fervour.

While there is such a thing as a “muse”, however, it’s not the kind of thing you can wait for. You have to go after it, and the way you do that is by forcing yourself to write, regularly.

Before long, you’ll find that “inspiration” starts to find you more and more often.

It will allow you to learn in accelerated time

As mentioned above, writing is a skill that has to be developed. It’s developed partly by doing a lot of reading, but also through doing a lot of writing.

In all likelihood, you will have to churn out a substantial amount of written work before you’ve refined your craft sufficiently to be a success at it.

Writing fast allows you to speed through this process, adjusting and learning as you go.

8 Ways A Writing Career Benefits Your Kids

Today, I am honored to bring you a guest post from Samara over at TinyFry! Samara Kamenecka is a Virtual Assistant specializing in SEO and writing, based in Madrid. When she’s not chained to her computer, she likes to explore the city with her boyfriend, their two kids, and their dog. You can find her blogging about everything from pregnancy tips to parenting hacks over at Tiny Fry. 

8 Ways A Writing Career Benefits Your Kids

Some people think that writing is an easy way to make a living working from home, but if it was easy everyone would do it. The truth is that making a living from writing can be challenging, but if you’re good at it, many rewards come along with writing as a career. My favorite part of being able to work from home is how it benefits my kids.

       No Daycare

Not having to pay a daycare provider is two benefits in one. First of all, daycare is not cheap, and many parents seem to work just to pay for someone else to care for their kid(s). Secondly, you know exactly who is raising your child, and you never have to worry about what the daycare provider may or may not be teaching them.

 Flexible Schedule

Having a flexible schedule is the best benefit for you and your kids. There are not many people in this world who have the flexibility to pick up and drop off their kids from school, attend mid-day school events, and still be around to have family dinner and help with homework at night. It also doesn’t force you into a panic whenever your kid has a sick day, or the daycare cancels out of nowhere.

      

Grow Together

Working as a writer takes a lot of hard work and growth which can get a bit  frustrating at times, especially when there are little ones tugging at your pant legs while you’re trying to focus. Though some days can be tough, it allows you and your kids to grow together and understand each other better. You will both probably learn lessons in patience and time management while building a stronger bond.

       They See a Role Model

A lot of kids don’t understand the importance of work because they simply don’t see it. By seeing you working to provide for your family you are setting a good example for work ethic and helping them understand an important part of life as an adult. As a work from home mom, you are also setting the example that women are an equally important part of the workforce as men.

      No Commute

Some people spend two hours or more of their day commuting to and from work. Not having to commute is a benefit for anyone who works from home, but especially parents who get to spend that extra time with their kids. It also saves money and the environment, which is yet another benefit to your children.

       Financial Contributions

Some parents decide to start writing after they have decided to stay at home. So hopefully, that income can be used in surplus to the budget to do things like save for a child’s education or enroll them in enrichment classes. The money could even be used for a vacation potentially, and since you’re a writer, you won’t have to worry about taking time off!

       A Safe and Clean Home

One of my favorite benefits of being a writing mom is that I can take a break from work to clean a room or throw in a load of laundry. Being able to care for the home while working helps keep a strong work/life balance and also keeps my home cleaner and safer for my kids to play.

      Mental Wellbeing

This is perhaps the subtlest benefit for children with work at home parents. Just knowing that there is going to be someone home to talk to when they need it offers confidence and lowers stress. Being around all the time to offer a hug for a scraped knee or an emotional bruise goes a long way in the happiness of a kid. I can’t tell you how many times my kids have come and sat by me in silence while I worked just to be around me. Being this available builds an unbreakable bond between parent and child that not every parent gets to experience.

If you are choosing to pull double duty as a parent and a writer, make sure you are prepared with everything you’ll need to keep your babies and kids safe and occupied. Writing from home benefits your kids in many ways, but it is still a job and one that can get a little tricky to balance if you’re not careful. At the end of the day, it is one of the best careers in the world to have when it comes to the perfect balance between finance and family.

Voices Of Social Media

It is amazing how much social media dominates people's lives.

I started my journey into the internet way back in 1996. I was twenty years old.

It's really hard for my kids to understand that no, the internet did not exist in my life until I was 20. They have always had the internet. 

Windows 95 had just hit critical mass and everyone had a desktop computer in their house. I was a new mom and started out looking for tips on pacifiers in a chat room and twenty one years later, I literally would not have a job without the social aspect of the internet. 

It is insane to sit back and think about how important social media is not to just us, but the entire world.

A virtual global free market has sprung up because of it! 

I started out with chat rooms, was a moderator on a forum for awhile, started my blogging career on XANGA, and then MySpace happened. 

Then onto Facebook, and Twitter, and Instagram, and now Pinterest. It is ever moving. A new social media site was just announced last week. You guys can join it, but I am exhausted.

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Social media is where the majority of people get their fake news, nowadays. I love Twitter, I go to Twitter first for news. Facebook is friends and family stuff. Instagram for photos and Pinterest for everything I am planning. It's like the first and last step of every day. Wake up, check, have a day, check, sleep.

Back to that virtual global free market, did I mention that I love it? I have met and done business with people from all over the world due to social media! I have found some great products and met some great folks to network with. Sometimes, because of luck. Sometimes because of social media optimization. There are many different ways to call attention to yourself on the internet, that's for sure. Social media and advertising are besties because of it!

In order to do business, you have to attract business, right? I never thought I would be the type of blogger to use any SEO tactics but now I am surprised I hadn't sooner! Sometimes, it can feel like you are screaming into the wind but because of the internet, specifically social media, there is always the chance that someone will hear your voice through the jumble. And that's all bloggers really want, I think. To be heard through the noise.

How do you drive traffic to your brand?  Have you noticed how well social media and advertising work together?