One major thing I learned in my M.F.A. program was that there’s no such a thing as a writer who doesn’t sacrifice their time in some way.

One of my mentors is a writing machine. She churns out books like it’s nothing, along with teaching full time and reading hundreds of books each year. I have often wondered how the hell she does it, and then I think of how much time I spend in my day on absolutely nothing. Because let’s be real, life is full of stuff that can get force our writing practice to get shoved to the side, but there are so many things we can give up that will afford us even just one hour a day to sit down and get words on the page. And one hour, if used well, can be an enormous amount of time.

Every writer/creator I know hopes that they’ll make money with their work, but the truth is that rarely happens. At least, not enough money to live on. Not until you’re an established writer, and even then, most writers have to book public speaking engagements, writing workshops in the community and through colleges, readings, etc. on top of their full time jobs to actually make money with their work. Roxanne Gay has written about this on her Twitter feed many time before, and she is a renown writer with her own Master Class.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with setting high goals. I think setting high goals is a big part of how we become successful writers. But we absolutely have to learn how to make time for our work. In undergrad, I knew students who would spend hours at a time sitting and writing, and they’d criticize the students who didn’t do that. My thought was always, “Well, you don’t have a job, so you have the time to sit and spend six hours working on a manuscript.” And even in grad school, where the real writing process is supposed to be cultivated and embedded into habit, there were students who waited until the last possible moment to even start their assignments.

And I get it: life is really fucking hard sometimes. I was going through a divorce, I was facing homelessness, I was living in poverty; I went from living in financial abundance to living in complete and utter destitution, unsure if I would even be able to make my rent month to month. I was working two jobs as well as being in graduate school full time, and by the end of every day, I was exhausted and utterly unmotivated. But I still managed to get my reading and writing assignments done on a consistent schedule, and not because I had a lot of extra time on my hands, because I didn’t. But because I was able to sacrifice television time, phone time, socializing time, family time, and even sleep to make sure I got done what needed to be done.

And that is the only reason I have any kind of consistent writing process right now. No one else is going to jump in and tell me to write. No one is going to pour me a pot of tea and sit me down and set a timer for one hour and tell me to write and not look at my phone or Facebook or Instagram until I’ve written for one hour. No one is going to help me set a pattern for myself, something like I can’t go and take a bath until I’ve written 500 words, or whatever the goal is. I have to set those stipulations myself. I have to commit to them, and then execute them.

And I am not someone who subscribes to the “write everyday” rule. (Except during NaNoWriMo. Then I do, because ya gotta get those badges.) But I do believe in writing when we see we have some time. Not even a lot of time. We all have an hour to spare most days, and sometimes that might mean we have to skip an episode of a show we like or not go hang out with friends or sacrifice a little bit of sleep. And sometimes it means recognizing that we’re simply not in a place where we can be as creative as we want, but that doesn’t mean we have to give it all up. If we can’t spend on hour on our big writing project, maybe we spend fifteen minutes on a micro piece of fiction or nonfiction or we write poem. Maybe it’s not even writing at all; maybe it’s taking a few photos outside, focusing on something we would usually miss or pass over, and taking a moment to really invest in the beauty of our surroundings.

Yes, the big parts of writing take a lot of time. That’s true for every writer out there and it’s not going to change or get any easier for any of us. Nor should it. But another part of being a creator is learning how to work with what we have. Imagine bigger, yes. Dream bigger, yes. Set bigger goals, yes. But also see the truth of where you are right now and work with that. Taking 15 minutes a day to write a half a page of content won’t seem like much at first, but it will absolutely lead to a fuller project eventually. 100 pages of prose is a full book, especially if you’re going off of prose poetry/micro-prose standards.

So here’s a prompt for those of us who have time constraints to work around: one thing that always helps me figure out where to start writing is by making a list of memories I want to write on. I start big, like miscarriage, marriage, gender, church, divorce, etc. I consider these the primary subject categories. Then, I make a subset of categories under each of the primaries that relate to the primary subject. For marriage I might put age, money, gender roles, family dynamics, jobs, romance, neglect, abuse, rejection, communication, resentment, etc. These help to pinpoint something specific, something I can hone in and focus on. Sometimes I’ll even take these and make a subset of them, naming out actual memories I have relating to the subset category. These lists help connect jumbled ideas/thoughts into something more interconnected so that even when writing short, half-page pieces, there’s an overarching structure to the narrative.

If you’re someone who doesn’t have a lot of time, I recommend these lists. I also recommend setting a word count goal for yourself rather than a length of time. Because you might sit down and write 150 words in ten minutes, and then your goal is met. Or, it might take you forty five minutes, but still, your goal is met. And remember: ANY amount of content that is created is a step towards getting work put together. Sometimes we just need to give ourselves a push.

Please note: I am not at all encouraging anyone to sacrifice their wellbeing for their work. We all have our personal limitations, we all have our personal abilities, and one thing I don’t think should ever be sacrificed is our self-care. Writing and art should never, ever, detract from our wellbeing. It should always help improve our wellbeing. With that said, I think sometimes we do have to be harder on ourselves than we want to be. It’s what makes the difference between successful writers, and people who want to be successful writers. That doesn’t mean your process has to look like anyone else’s. But it does mean we should be working to make sure there is some kind of process. And every single step makes a difference.