Setting Aside Time Regularly to Write Your E-Book

Writing is a high-resistance activity, so you’ll easily find reasons not to write. One common excuse I hear when I’m teaching and coaching other writers is “I just don’t have enough time to write.”

If you want to be a successful writer — one who completes major projects — make time for your writing. Treat your e-book as a serious and important project, not one that you work on only if you happen to have a few hours to spare. (Honestly, does that ever even happen?)

To make time for your e-book, block out time in your diary. If you plan ahead and set aside a couple of evenings a week, or a full Saturday twice a month, you can safeguard your time against other commitments. Because you’re also making a promise to yourself, you’re less likely to convince yourself that you’re not in the mood and skip writing.

Choosing the right place and time to write

Take control of when and where you write. You won’t have a successful writing session if you try to sit down and work on your e-book after dinner, in front of the television, with your family seated nearby.

The best place to work on your e-book is a spot where you won’t be disturbed or interrupted. It doesn’t have to be quiet (though some writers prefer to work in silence). You might feel inspired when you’re in a busy coffee shop instead. If you write at home, set up your writing space in a room that isn’t used much by the rest of your household, such as your own office space or, more likely, a desk in the corner of your bedroom.

If it’s difficult to focus at home, try other locations. Try writing during your lunch hour at work or taking your laptop to a public library. You can even ask to use a friend’s house if she’s away on vacation (and you can water her plants in return).

Finding the best time to write is also important. We all have different peaks and valleys of energy — some writers are morning people, and others work best in the late evening. You may need to experiment to find out what’s right for you. What you’ll find is that you can focus easily at certain times of the day (my peak occurs between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.) but that you struggle to string together two coherent sentences at other times. (I often slump around 4:00 p.m.)

If your peak time coincides with your paid employment, or another commitment, try shifting your working hours. If you’re at your best between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., for example, and your company allows flexible hours, consider working from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. rather than from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Another option is to shift your “peak” slightly: Try getting out of bed an hour earlier and writing from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. Don’t forget the weekends — be sure to write during your peak hours, and leave chores and errands for other times of the day.

Avoiding distractions while you’re writing

After setting aside three hours on Saturday afternoon to write, you head into your office with a mug of coffee in hand. Three hours later, you’ve written a single paragraph — and you’ve acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of web comics. You end your writing session feeling frustrated with yourself. Perhaps you even feel that you’re just not cut out to be a writer — because you’re not self-disciplined enough.

Every writer I know struggles at least a little with procrastination (myself included), and for some, it’s a true problem. If you notice that you’re spending lots of time surfing the web when you should be writing, it doesn’t mean that you’re not cut out to be a writer — you only need to follow a few tips and techniques for avoiding distractions the next time you sit down to write:

Give yourself a specific target. Write for an hour is an acceptable goal, but — ideally — you want a goal that’s related to the work itself. Modify the original version to Write the first section of Chapter 3 or Write the scene where Tom has a fight with James.

Turn off any electronic devices or programs that might cause an interruption. Switch off your mobile phone, close your e-mail inbox, close Skype — the world can cope without you for an hour.

Try using a full-screen writing environment. If you normally write in Microsoft Word or another word processing program, you may realize that you’re spending a lot of time fiddling with (or fighting with) its various features. A simple full-screen program such as Dark Room for the PC (http://they.misled.us/dark-room ) or WriteRoom for the Mac (www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom ) eliminates these distractions.

Set a timer. You can use a kitchen timer or an online time. Set it to 20 minutes, and write until the timer goes off. You can check facts, answer text messages, make coffee, or tend to other tasks after the 20-minute period ends.

Turn off your Internet connection. This advice might seem drastic, but if you find it truly difficult to stay focused, it can make all the difference. If you’re distracted by particular websites, you can prevent yourself from having access to them. Most browsers let you list URLs of sites you want to block.

Being able to focus and write for an hour or two at a time is more about habit than self-discipline. If you always sit down and surf the Internet for 30 minutes before writing your first paragraph, you’ll soon feel like you need that 30 minutes in order to write. You don’t — it’s simply a habit. If, instead, you sit down for a writing session and immediately write a page before you take a break, you’ll soon form a new habit — and you’ll find it much easier to write.