How to Get Writing Time In With School. And Work. And Daily Human Being Functioning.

  "I didn't have time" is a common excuse for a reason! It's not about being lazy, or not liking writing enough, life happens...
 But that isn't the end of the line! There are things you can do when life seems way too busy, that don't include staying up half the night or compromising your grades.
  Here are 5 things you can do to help get daily writing time in, even with school, work, insane amounts of doctors visits, a zombie apocalypse, or any other not so natural disaster that might happen...

1. Map Out Your Time

  Make a blank schedule with each part of the day that you're awake in half-hour sections, and as you go through the day just write down what you do... Then at the end of the day, or the next day, or whenever you can sit down and think, look back at what you did. 

  Some things, like school or eating or breathing, you can't really do that much about (Unless you happen to spend two hours on dinner or something), but other things, like watching TV or YouTube, browsing social media, and texting your friends could be sacrificed. You heard me right; tie 'em up, stick 'em in a bonfire, and pray to the almighty writing gods while ignoring the screams and explosions! 

  No, just kidding, you can't really write in prison so that won't work...  Instead, just take some of the time you use for those things and write instead! It doesn't have to be all the time, even just half an hour is good progress! But chances are, writing a page of your book is going to be more helpful that knowing which celebrity dissed who this week... (What do you even do with that information?? Really, I want to know, please tell me!!) 

2. Don't Write. 

  That sounds like the world's worst tip, doesn't it? Well just hang on a second! I can explain... 

  Some days you just don't have the time. You have a big test, big doctor issues, vampires are stalking around just waiting for the sun to go down... Things happen! 

  But what you CAN do on those days is think about writing. It's been scientifically proven that thinking about doing something can make you better at it, not to mention that you can get to know you're characters or world really good by thinking about them! Not all of writing happens on paper, it starts in your head, evolves in your head, it literally all happens in your head expect the part where you translate your neurons firing at each other to comprehensible words you can share without telepathy. So think! Think about anything in your book; characters, the world, plot holes, individual scenes, backstory, or (My favorite!) totally unrelated scenes with your characters involved that let's you get to know them better! (Is it obvious that I'm in the character development/obsession stage?)

3. Writing Club

  Join a writing club; online or at your school! Having fellow writers around with the same issues as you can be very motivating, not to mention when writing block sets in!
  Anyway, since a club at school is time out of your day dedicated to writing, talking about writing, or planning your writing, it's perfect! Even though writing doesn't seem like a social thing, there are plenty of things to talk about relating to writing and having a critique group is awesome!
  If there isn't a writing club you can join... Make one! Or, if you're like me, spend eternity trying to make yourself do it until someone else has the idea! (Don't do that; it's counterproductive!)
 

4. Give Yourself Permission To Write the Most Horrible Thing on Planet Mars   

  A big factor in the fact that aspiring writers don't write is because they want it to be perfect... Well you know what? It's not gonna be perfect. Even professional, millionaire writers don't write perfect. They edit a lot.  

  So accept the fact that it isn't going to be perfect, stop procrastinating, and get words down! Take all that incomprehensible, glittery sludge from your head, throw it onto a piece of paper, and start drawing the pictures you see in your head with it! (That's really I think about when I write, because that's exactly what my first drafts look like... Mixed and messed gunk, full of glitter because it's shiny enough to be worth looking at, and then rearrange until the shiny is on top and you'd never know how much slime I got rid of!) 

  I've found that the more I feel like my writing isn't good enough, the less I write, and the more totally necessary things like checking school discussion boards for the tenth time today I do... 

  Just do the thing! Because editing a blank page is hard, and extremely boring! 

5. Multitask

  Don't multitask with important things, but you can do more than one thing at once! Riding to school on the bus? Write too! Sitting at lunch while your friends talk about something you have no interest in? Write! Your math teacher droning on and on AGAIN? Listen to him! You won't fail that way!
  Anyway, there are plenty of things that you can write while doing. Mostly things you're obligated to do but really only to get on to the next thing. You shouldn't write during family dinner, that's rude, but if everyone's watching that TV show that your brother loves and has only seen every day for the last two years, go ahead and write...
 
That's what you can do if you don't have time to write. Take it all with a grain of salt, because salt tastes bad enough that it'll stop your mind from floating too far out of the real world!