5 WAYS TO GET YOUR WRITING DONE.

It’s easy not to write. It’s easy to blame “writer’s block,” which I don’t believe in (I believe writer’s block just means you can’t write what you want to write when you want to write it). It’s easy to blame your children’s soccer and music schedules, your spouse’s job, having to cook and clean, not having the support you think you need at home. You can tell yourself you’ll just get started on the first of the new year, and then, hungover, you’ll start on the second—who can write on New Year’s Day? You can do all that if it makes you feel less guilty. But you know what does get you writing? Writing.

When I was younger, I used all of the above excuses for why I wasn’t writing. I had plenty more (and still do), but these days I ignore them all. My process is simple: I write a first draft as fast as I can. That can run anywhere from three (yes, three) weeks for a three-hundred-page draft, to twenty-three years (I have one novel I’ve been editing for that long that went from short stories to a novel, to my master’s thesis for my MFA to my hundred plus draft). I’m still not done on that one. But I’ve found a few solid rules that I follow ninety-nine percent of the time. If I don’t fulfill my writing goals for the day, I double up the next day. If I don’t complete them in two days (sometimes I’m on vacation, or taking my kids somewhere for the weekend, whatever), then I triple up the first day I can, and so on. Here are 5 ways to get your writing done no matter what you have going on:

1. Set a set time to write and DO NOT stray from that time    

I know, it’s easy to state that you’ll stick to a certain time, but a bit harder to actually follow through. But you can do it. You have it in you. But it will require sacrifice. It will require willpower and diligence and, often, feeling like you’re letting someone down. But you’re letting yourself down by not accomplishing what you’ve set out to accomplish. When I worked a corporate job, I would wake up at three a.m. to write. I sacrificed my sleep. I had two children under five years old. I had a wife, a Belgian Malinois (which requires a lot of attention so it doesn’t attack everything around it), a house and yard I had to tend to, work trips that had me traveling all the time, and a workout routine I couldn’t not abide (I’ve been an athlete all my life and it helps me stay sane). But I got up every day like clockwork to get my writing in. On the weekends, my ex watched the kids so that I could write a few hours. I made no excuses. I am and have been a writer for a long time. I cannot not write. When I don’t write, I become very anxious. If that’s you, you’re a writer. Set time aside to write. Don’t make excuses.

2. Understand The Tools at Your Disposal

Leo Tolstoy didn’t have Microsoft Word. Dostoevsky didn’t have Grammarly, or Scrivener, Google Docs or Ulysses. People actually used to write with pen and paper and typewriters and word processors where you could only see one line at a time. I haven’t used anything but MS Word for decades, but I still do, on occasion, write entire novels using a pen and notebook. I find I write better that way. Then I read my book to MS Word’s “Dictate” feature and it types my draft up for me. Then I print it and edit it by hand using a pencil or pen (my significant other calls it erasing, which I think is a funny term for rewriting and killing off my darlings). If you use tools to write, more power to you. A lot of writers these days leverage these tools to get their writing done. These tools aren’t for me, especially the AI tools, but do what you have to do to get the words down. That is the important part of writing. Without getting the words down you have nothing to work on. Which means you have nothing. If you want a quick look at some writing tools available to you, check out Reedy’s The 23 Best Writing Tools of 2025: A Guide for Writers.

3. Don’t Beat Yourself Up

You’re not always going to write what you want to write. What you picture in your mind isn’t what’s going to show up on the page. Not the first time around. Or the second time around once you get your edits and revisions done. And probably not the third time. That’s just writing. Writing is editing. As Jodi Picoult says, “You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” And she’s right.

Writing is a process. It takes patience. It means understanding that you’re going to write the best first draft you can, because you need that to write the best second draft you can. If you think your first draft is ready for publication, you’re probably a beginning writer. And that’s okay. We all go through that delusional period in our lives where we believe ourselves infallible. Where we believe we’re literary geniuses and everyone will know it soon enough. That we just have to run spellcheck and get the formatting down—double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font, because that’s what all the publishers or agents want. Psst: we’re not. At least not ninety-nine-point-nine percent of us aren’t. We’re just craftspeople building novels one word at a time. Once you accept that you’re not writing War and Peace on the first go, you’re one step closer to being a real writer with realistic expectations. Oh, and if you don’t make your writing goals for the day, it’s okay. Make them up tomorrow. It isn’t a race, and no one cares what you’re doing. Really, no one. Not until they see a published book. And even then, you’ll find that they probably don’t care. Unless they’re writers or, dare I say, readers who actually read.

                                                --Jodi Picoult

4. Have a Core Set of Writing Buddies/Beta Readers

Total transparency here: I only have my work looked at once a year. I meet with long-time writer friends in Taos, New Mexico, every year, where we workshop each other’s novels. So, for me, that means I must write the first draft of a novel once a year. And I do it. Year after year. But again, I write quickly, so I never fear not making our May deadline (we give ourselves a couple months to read each other’s novels). But that may not necessarily work for you, especially if you’re just getting started or if you benefit from having more regular contact and constructive feedback from other writers. If that’s you, hook up with some writer friends and share your work. If you don’t have writer friends, and depending on where you live, there may be some writing groups you can join. Not all of them are going to be geared for what you want to achieve. When I first started out, I went to a lot of these groups. Some of them had writers at my level, but most didn’t. I found a lot of the groups were just social events for people who had time on their hands and thought, as many people do, that they had a story to tell. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. But they seemed to give up. Their writing life seemed to fizzle out somewhere along the way. So, I stopped going. I studied writing and literature for many years, and have written for many years, and when you’ve done that, you tend to be able to work solo. At least for most of the time. I’m able to do that now, but it took me some time. There’s no law on when you’ll be able to do that, if you even want to. But give writing groups a try if you’re not accomplishing what you want to accomplish. You never know—you may just meet the group that pushes you in just the right way to getting your novel done sooner than later.

5. Never Give Up

Writing is a marathon, not a race. Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve written first drafts in three weeks, and I’m still working on one that I started twenty-two years ago. Sometimes that’s just how things go. Your job is to write and revise and edit and rewrite and so on until you have something you can’t improve upon, or think is ready to go, either to a literary agent or an indie publisher or an editor. You want to put out the best book you can. That requires a lot more than just writing your novel. It requires the help of others, if you’re taking this writing thing seriously. But do not give up. When you finish a draft of a book, put it away. Write something else. When you’re done with that, go back to the first thing you wrote. Start the revision process all over again. You should learn how to self-edit your own fiction before you send it out into the world to be reviewed by others. But never give up. The only thing stopping you from writing your novel is you. Do what you have to do to complete your book.

There is nothing in this world like writing a novel and seeing it in print. Nothing. But it requires sacrifice. It requires patience. It requires accepting criticism, and people not caring about what you love so much. It requires, like your characters, that you overcome the hurdles thrown in front of you in order to get what you want. And if you want it bad enough like I do, you sacrifice things you may not want to sacrifice. For years, I had handwritten notes taped to the wall in front of my writing desk. They were motivational quotes that I read every day to remind myself what I had to do to get where I wanted to get to. They worked most days, and other days I just blew them off. But I hold them close to my heart today, when I know what I’m doing and what I have to do to get that book done. Never give up on your dreams. Sacrifice what you have to to make those dreams reality. You got this. I believe in you. Now all you have to do is believe in yourself.

Cully Perlman is an author, blogger, and substantive editor. He can be reached at Cully@novelmasterclass.com or Cullyperlman@gmail.com