Let’s face it, life has a knack for getting in the way of what we want to do sometimes…

Okay, most of the time.

For me, that is my family and my job primarily, but there’s also just those small little things that tend to get in the way of my writing time (like notifications, news, or just my phone itself). Sometimes, I sit down and plan to write three chapters only to realize that I was only able to get a paragraph.

Life doesn’t always work the way we plan out for it, so we need to be able to adapt and move with it. So the biggest thing I have taken from it is this: Write when you can, not when it’s perfect.

Usually, My big writing day of the week is Friday. I can get multiple chapters done with ease before it’s lunchtime! That, or I can get a few blogs planned and even research some agents for the books I’m writing.

However, this last Friday, I had to trade my writer cap in for my dad cap for the day. My daughter came down with Strep throat, and she was NOT happy!

So, that’s that, right? My writing day was completely gone and I couldn’t do any type of work. I had to just be a dad that day and forget about getting any type of work done.

Nope, wrong!

I did a few things in the day that made it possible to get some writing done. Overall, I didn’t get as much work done as I wanted to, but I still got some words on to the page, and that’s a win in my book.

For starters, I woke up at 5:00AM like I normally do. Usually, I would just roll over and go back to sleep, but this morning was different. I got up, headed to my office, and started doing some work. I was able to query a few agents about my first book AND got halfway through a chapter on my second book before anyone else was awake. The best part? It felt GREAT! Something about starting the morning off strong just felt good.

Of course, this didn’t last, and eventually I had to get my daughter up for the day. But because I got some of my writing done, I felt like I at least accomplished some of my writing goals for the day. This put me in a great mood, which helped make taking care of my sick toddler a lot easier.

Eventually, my daughter went down for a nap, and I had a pile of laundry to do, as I told my wife it would get done. So what I did was get the laundry going (as quietly as possible) and wrote in between the loads running. I was able to complete the chapter I was working on AND got laundry wrapped up before my daughter woke up.

By the time my wife got home from her job, I felt fantastic. Not only did I get some housework done, but I also got a lot of the writing I wanted to get done that day!

I finally figured it out. Sometimes, you just need to write when you can. Just because you don’t have a perfect set of hours to write, doesn’t mean you can’t squeeze in time during the day. Don’t wait for the perfect time or perfect vibes, just sit down and get some writing in when you can!

A lot of my writing gets done this way now. I don’t plot out hours of perfect, quiet time for nothing but writing. Instead, I get as much writing as I can get in, and let the distractions come and go as they do. This has really helped me keep my pieces moving forward, and it makes it way easier to sit down at the desk and get a few paragraphs down.