If your profession or study is completely different from your writings and takes up a good chunk of your day...how do you make room for writing so that it doesn't bleed into your other areas of life and so on? What is your writing routine?
Edit: Besides the time for writing, I think what I'm trying to ask is, how do you focus? Sometimes it feels like you're doing something when you feel you should be doing something else. Only to find when you do that something, it goes back to feeling you should be doing the other thing that you just switched from. And sometimes that leaves you with nothing done, at least not satisfactory.
I probably need to stop trying to swim in both directions and just pick one path to go already. Inadequate at both atm.
Start going to the gym.
No, wait, don't go first, hear me out.
You go to the gym not just to acquire GAINS, but to acquire discipline.
Discipline is the key of the game.
Back then, I used to do track and field. That was up to when I was twelve. I simply adopted a mindset of discipline but I never knew where to apply it on. Then I started writing when I was fourteen, and I've applied discipline there ever since.
The idea is that in order for you to improve your lap time/your gains, you have to train at a specified time while pushing the envelope further. I used to be in lap races. I started off with average 4 minutes when I joined. By the time I graduated, I'm doing close to 2 minutes flat. I do this by forcing myself to practice at set times, and, though it's enforced by the school, it still counts. I never skip weekend practices and keep doing it anyway.
Now apply that mindset to writing. Your profession may hinder your time for writing, but you have to learn to use EVERY limited time you have and jam it into writing. Give yourself the morning. Wake up early. Write for an hour and go to school. Come back home. Shower. Finish your homework. Write. Dinner. Study. Write until it's bed time. In order to prevent burning out, laze out for the weekends and play some games. Or, if you're really for it, keep writing. The advantage is that writing is a mental strain. I have the gift from my parents that I'm a stubborn fucking man. I may not have the gift in the physical department but I can sit myself down for copious amounts of hours doing the same thing if I want to.
Force yourself into that mindset. Set a schedule and stick to it. Make sure your materials are close by at every moment. Notepad and pen? In the pocket. Google Docs? On the first home page on your phone. I even go as far as to set my note pages as my wallpaper so I can remind myself what to write. There was also this one time where I set an alarm to write, but that proved too stressful, as I'm ADHD enough to check the time every 5 minutes.
Adapt, improvise and commit. No time? Find time. There's time? Use time. Using time? Keep using time. The day you slack is the day you put your foot over the slippery slope. Soon your mind will adopt a pattern where the time will come and the neurons start firing. As an extra bonus, find a static place to write everyday. To me, it's the park bench. I go there every 9am - 11am and 5pm - 7pm to write. I bring nothing but my earphones and my bottle. Now with the pandemic? A mask. I sit there and write, sometimes until my mom calls me for dinner. I make sure I prepped everything for the next day. I shower before I go out so I can eat the moment I reach home. I save my Docs to the cloud every night so I won't have to worry about it the next day.
Now everytime I sit on the park bench, the ideas start coming, and I write like there's no tomorrow.
Your body works best like clockwork. Abuse that system. Commit yourself to a schedule and slowly improve your times within that schedule. I used to do 500 words every day. Now I do between 700 to 1000 per writing session. That's >1.4k every day. You'll be releasing 2k chapters every two days.
There's always different circumstances. If so, take that schedule to the next level. Whenever you take a shit, write. It need not commit to a time, but a location. Write there. On the school bus' commute? Write. In the cafeteria? Write. Hell, if you got time to grind in Genshin, you got time to write. Choose your commitment. I'm just telling you how to commit. It's your decision on WHAT to commit.
The most important part is to ADHERE to that schedule. Like I said, discipline. The first day you slack would be the first of many. Never compromise. Stick to the plan even when the world fails. Learn to keep your head in the clouds. Get used to the act of writing. If there's a chance, write. Waiting in a restaurant? Write. Meetup with a friend but said friend's late? Write. It won't be as productive, but an inch of progress is still progress. The word count is unlike the human body. It doesn't deflate. It always stacks; more the reason to keep writing.
Plan. Adapt. Commit. Discipline. The four great mantras for doing anything. Stick to it as stubborn as an ass. Don't stop. Never stop. Soon, you'll find yourself incapable of stopping.
