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Every writer is different. Some people spend forty hours a week in an office or working from home. I happen to be in a school teaching high school English. I shared my daily routine as a working writer here.

So many people use having a job as an excuse not to write, claiming it’s too hard to find the time. The reality is that most writers have various streams of income and have to juggle many things in a day besides writing. I wrote 12 novels and edited a literary journal while working full time as an English teacher. Having a job isn’t an excuse not to write. It can be more challenging to find the time, certainly, but the time is there if you’re willing to put away the distractions to focus on what is really important to you. 

Most weeks, I find a few hours in the early evening after work when I can get some writing done. Even so, I look forward to the weekend as an opportunity to unwind as well as make some progress on my WIP. The weekend can be a great time to catch up, but there has to be a balance between writing and living our lives. 

It can be hard not to put a lot of pressure on myself to get a lot done over the weekend. I’ve learned the hard way that weekends are precious during the school year, and they’re not just for writing. They’re for me. I like to get some writing done, yes, but I also need to build in some fun time too. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made is treating the weekend like catch-up time, especially when I didn’t get a lot done during the week. They problem with that mindset is that it turns writing into a chore.

I’ve found it helpful to reframe my mindset. That’s true of so many things in life, isn’t it? So often it’s not the experience itself, but how we respond to it. I’ve come to think of the weekend as time to nurture my creativity as well as myself. As artists, we need to refill our creative wells. We can’t fill our story buckets from empty wells. Our creativity needs to be refilled as much as our word counts needs to grow. 

I usually run my errands on Saturday mornings, and I prefer to get everything done early so I have the rest of the day to myself. I go grocery shopping and finish whatever other errands need doing, and then I head to a favorite coffee shop. Then I come home and make breakfast.

After I give myself some time to enjoy a favorite TV program or two, I get writing. I don’t write all day, and I don’t write every weekend. Some weekends I’m just plain tired and need to rest, or I have other things planned. I love writing, but I still need to live my life. I don’t often do marathon sessions on the weekend. I write for two, three, sometimes four hours. I need to pace myself on Saturdays and Sundays. I’d rather get one solid hour of writing time than a full day of forced, half-hearted work. I’ve seen too many working writers go for eight-hour marathon sessions on the weekend and then burn themselves out. Not only do they fail in meeting their goals, but they’re hard on themselves for not achieving those goals.

I usually save my hobbies, like coloring or my reading journal, for weekend afternoons. I have more time to work on my reading journal on Sundays, for example, and I can take my time planning my spreads and searching my supply stash. I also use the time to watch TV and movies that I don’t get to during the week. I don’t watch much TV during the week because I’m either at work or writing, so weekends are when I watch whatever is hanging out on my TBW list. I love Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. I’ve also been watching the latest season of The Great British Bake-Off. I went to see the final Downton Abbey movie, which surprises exactly zero people, I know. What is a week-end?

My evening routine doesn’t change much on the weekend. I turn everything off, as in TV and computer, at about 7 pm, especially on Sundays when I have to go to work in the morning. I pull out my book and read for the rest of the night. It’s my way of winding down.

All of this is subject to change depending on where I am in the writing process. When I’m writing a first draft, I put in my 500 words and call it a day. When I’m in the flow, which is usually the third draft stage for me, I might write for several hours. If the words and ideas are coming, I don’t like to stop them. 

As with any routine, everything here is fluid. If I want to go to the movies, or to the park, or just sit on my little plant-filled patio, I can. That’s the joy of a weekend. I like getting some of my writing done during those two days, but I also like having space to relax. 

Over time, I’ve learned that my weekend routine isn’t about writing perfect pages or making massive progress on my word count. Weekends are about building a sustainable writing life. Writing is a marathon, not a sprint. I’ve learned to embrace the balance and ditch the guilt for not doing more. As a result, my weekends have become both productive and creative, as well as time to refill my well.