Difficult to make time to write......

[CrystaI]

I graduated my university, so it is time to get on track with my real-life, where I got myself an occupation and start the life like a normal civilian recently. But then, it is really getting frustrating that my fanfic writing hobby need to halt for even longer, not only due to work, but also my parent are giving me my further stresses of all the discussions of getting further into my occupation, they just never ever care about my emotional need where I hoped for a stressless quiet time and place. Sometimes when I thought that I may have to terminate my ongoing story forever, that frustration just swell up even further. I didn't finish writing any chapter for already 2 years, and feels like haven't sit down quietly for more than a year due to my final year study, and still unable to after the graduation. All of these are just so frustrating that even I do get spare time here and there in between, I can't manage to get myself calm down to write. Sorry for the ranting, but I really want to rant this out, or else I feel like this will become mental disease of mine.


Well this thread is for ones to share their frustrating writer's block due to real-life problems, and if possible give advice to others of dealing their real-life problems.

If possible, I really hope someone can tell me what to do to get though this so-called real-life. This is even more frustrating than before my graduation......

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

On this topic, I was given some advice once. I didn't think it was very helpful, but maybe someone else will think otherwise. Basically, they said that we all have the same time, and how much you get for writing is down to how much you choose to give it. I didn't find this helpful because it ignores the fact that everyone has real life things that need doing, like work and various obligations, and so on. Furthermore, creativity's more like a mood than anything else - it just comes and goes on its own without giving you much control. Not very good advice, I thought, but maybe someone will find it useful.

So I have a lot of difficulty with writer's block too, though from the sounds of it, it's not as bad as what you're getting. It's annoying, I have a bad day and don't get anything written, and then this puts me in a bad mood the next day and makes it harder to write more. And then, if I don't write anything for a while, I start getting out of touch with the story, and my writing gets rusty. Real life certainly doesn't help anything - to get writing done, I find I need to have free time at just the right moment when I'm feeling up to it, and then I lose a lot of my time to the internet anyway.

So, yeah, I have no good advice, sorry, and I'm not in a good way right now either, particularly.

 

[GhostFingers]

The thing is, no one is going to give you time to write or do your leisure activities. You need to make the time. I know that doesn't sound very helpful, but let me elaborate.

If you really like doing something, like writing, you will find a way to make the time for it. My vice is procrastinating by derping around on the internet not getting anything productive done, because i enjoy idle web surfing. But the problem there is i feel bad for it later having felt like i've done nothing productive. I also really enjoy gaming (as i'm sure we all do) and it sucks up the writing time because it's easy and its' right there. However i am now telling myself that i have got to get into a routine of writing before college starts for me, otherwise i will not make the effort to make time later. I find the hardest part is making myself sit down and start. Once i have started, the rest of the ideas flow for hours. It is a mental struggle against various needs all pulling me in different directions. I know it is easy for me right now as i don't have too much 'Real Life' stuff going on at the moment, but i believe everyone struggles with the inner battle of wills. I know that making a time schedule for creativity sounds counter-intuitive, being that inspiration really can't be scheduled, but it is a form of art, and it demands practice. If you just force yourself to sit down and try, even if the result is an hour of rubbish, it is an exercise in shaking the rust off and finding what you didn't like, so you can change it next time.

 

[CrystaI]

Personally I don't have much problem about the issue of wasting time in other leisures, because my leisures activities are rather limited. Whenever I have free time but not connecting my computer to the internet, I don't know why but I will just go automatically to my fanfic folder to open the documents in there, even I may just sit there and read it over and over again for gazillion times. Even though currently I'm in the state of writer's block, this kind of habit just doesn't stop. I haven't touch any of my gaming consoles for already more than a year (though half of the reason was like I stated previously, the "real-life problems").

Technically speaking, time is not something to be "made" out of thin air, one can only "spare" it from the limited 24 hours in a day. Excluding sleeping time of 6~8 hours, one can only freely manipulate the 16~18 hours. I found myself an office work where that will take away 8 hours (including lunch break), if including travel time to workplace and back to home that will add another ~1.5 hours. All the necessary daily routine works such as bathing/teeth brushing/toilet/food preparation/pet feeding/cloth washing will then took away 1.5~2.5 hours. There remains only 4~5 hours completely free for my control, but that is usually the time where my brain is tired and difficult to think properly on writing an epic story.

At the time where my brain is most focused and energetic, those energies were 90% used on my occupation. Although I do get a few free moments in between, but the situation won't allow me to fantasize something unrelated to work. Therefore it left me only the time of during weekends, but that is also the time my parents having weekend time, where their talkative nature rack away my focus, even I lock myself up in my room.

Oh well. I guess this is just the so-called Real-Life, something that makes your mind forever restless. And trying to produce some literature artwork which is a product of free-mindedness is just one of the most difficult challenge.

 

[Almonds]

Whenever something comes up in my head, I send an email to myself using my phone, whether it's a few lines or a paragraph. I don't write all of the inspiration if I'm too busy - just a sentence or two that provides the gist of the idea. It's how I've kept story ideas when they pop up during exam week or while writing end-of-term papers. The downside is that I've rarely completed any of those stories, and most of them ended as incomplete drabbles because I have to find time to sit down and concentrate on getting the sentence fixed or choose the proper words or come up with a decent climax or such - and it's difficult to spare time when I have other things to do. Since I travel by subway, I use the travel time to write down inspiration if I can, but that's just temporary.