Carly Phillips

I often ask what’s the best part about being a writer? Easy answer. Making my own schedule. What’s the worst part? Also making my own schedule. As a stay at home mom with two girls (now 17 and 13), I’ve learned to be adaptable. I started to write when my first daughter was just one. I needed to learn to write when she napped or occupied herself (hah!). Luckily, I’ve always been a person who needed background noise to write. In High School, later college and law school, radio or TV would keep me company. In fact, silence is too noisy for me! Over the years, I kept up quite the writing pace – at times – 4 Harlequin Temptations a year. I must have written through many distractions!

When I started writing single title romances, starting with The Bachelor, the length and different complexity brought me to two books a year. Although this was still the word count equivalent to the four Temptations. But I definitely started to slow down. Hit more blocks. I used to think that when the newness of the career wore off, sometimes it became more like work than love. But then I’d realize no matter how hard the stories were to write, I still loved what I do. But I found myself in a new pattern – writing less in the beginning of a deadline, scrambling more towards the end. I realize now this isn’t so much a function of laziness or wasting time (OK well there is SOME of that) but beginnings are more difficult for me than middles and endings.

In the beginning, I’m establishing character, motivation, conflict and story. I often find myself going back and weaving in something big that should have been there all along. For awhile this was frustrating. I thought it was because I didn’t preplan enough. But as the Plotmonkey Group evolved (we go away as a group 2 times a year to plot), I WAS getting the preplotting work and still struggling through beginnings. So I now accept, this is my process. The beginning is slow and requires reworking and revising a lot; and the middle and ends go much faster.

With this new process, I needed a new schedule. I could no longer rely on “writing when I can.” It’s funny. I thought when my kids got older, I’d write more. Instead I found myself writing less.  That’s when I realized something had to change. And it did.

USA Today Bestselling Author Janelle Denison is my critique partner and friend. We talk for hours every day. She lives in Oregon, I live in NY. We both have girls the same age. And we both hit the same scheduling issues at the same time. We decided to try something: We “meet” online (via AIM) at 9 AM EST; 6 PM PST (yes this requires more dedication on her end as she has to wake up very early!) – we say hi on AIM (Instant Messenger). Janelle sets the alarm for 30 minutes, and we write straight through. When the time is up, she IM’s and asks if I’m up for 30 more. We do this for an hour – an hour and a half.  I no longer book 9 AM doctor or hair appointments. I try to ignore (thanks to Caller ID) calls that can wait. When possible, nothing else happens until I’m finished at 10:30/11:00 AM. Yes, occasionally life gets in the way. Pages don’t happen. But I always pick up and start over the next day at 9 AM.

We’ve been at this since March. When I started I was on page 80 and now I’m on 250. I will meet my deadline, yes with a rush towards the end, but my goal for the next book is to start with this scheduling and write daily. If I keep it up, I may turn in a book early (as opposed to just on time) for the first time in years. And I may end up relaxed throughout the process.

One can always hope!

The point in sharing this is to tell you that life isn’t static. It’s chaos and change. The days when I used to plan an entire day to write, one of the kids would get sick. When I had only a spare hour, I’d crank out pages. Over time, not only did I need to adapt but I needed more routine. For now, I have that. I’m sure over time, this schedule will need to morph into something different as my life’s needs change. But having seen the value in daily writing – it comes faster; easier; more consistent flow – I want to continue.

So if you’re not writing the way you’d like, take a look at your life and your schedule. See where you can make changes and PROTECT THE WORK (rumor has it this phrase comes from Nora – not surprising – and I thank her for it!). If you don’t mark your work time as sacred, no one else will!