Writer's Wednesday ~ Stolen Moments

Borrowed from DeviantArt

When do you make time for your writing? For your reading?  (We all know it's critical to stay on top of the market by reading within our genres.)

If you're a scheduler, than I have no tips for you.  I would never follow my own schedule.  Deadlines sometimes help, but only if they're real (like a CP is waiting on my work). For me, what I need are moments of stolen time.  I don't know why ... maybe I feel like I'm sneaking in something special by writing when it's not expected.  But here are some ideas to help you work writing time into your day that you didn't otherwise knew you had:

*  Take your laptop or book with you to your kid's activities. Do you really need to watch their sixty-seventh attempt at the perfect cartwheel during gymnastics? What about those times your kid is just warming the bench or practicing?  These are my most favorite stolen moments for some reason.  It's like multi-tasking at its finest.

*  Email your WIP to yourself at the office.  During lunch, can you pop it open and add a couple hundred words, then mail it back to your home account. Not only did you find some spare time, you also build in a backup save of your work in case your computer crashes. You can always retrieve the old email from one of the servers.

*  I usually can't make myself go to bed any earlier to read, but I can make use of that "twilight" time before I crash to get in another chapter.  I've found a book light has helped tremendously with this one, because now I don't feel guilty about coming in and turning on the light next to hubby.

*  Get one of the reading Apps for your phone so you always have your book with you.  Why bother with magazines when you're waiting in the doctor's office?  Your current read is as close as your cell phone.  You don't even have to remember your e-reader or book.


So, those are my little tricks for slipping in reading and writing time.  What are yours?