When Martha was an editor at a major publisher in New York City, one of her authors handed in his final manuscript with a dedication page that read:

“This book is dedicated to my dog, Spot, the only one who didn’t complain.”

Families with a writer make sacrifices. Behind every aspiring writer with a family is an engaged, supportive crew who knows how to give that writer what he or she needs to be able to work.

Writing is a solitary task and it takes time. While some writers like to listen to loud Rock and Roll while writing – think Stephen King – others need silence to be able to concentrate and access that zone where the words flow onto the page.

While the writer is in this zone, who walks the dog, shovels the snow, and keeps things going?

The Spouse

Behind every successful writer is a dedicated family, starting with a supportive spouse.

Being in a relationship with a creative type can be difficult. Maintaining a relationship with a writer requires patience, understanding, and communication, though communication is best performed outside of writing hours. Many writers will need psychological space, as well as time. A spouse who provides this combination plays no small part in bringing books to completion.

The Children

Children with a writer for a parent learn to be independent. There will be times of the day when mummy or daddy is working and needs to be undisturbed. This boundary is often tricky, because being at home and being available are the same thing in the minds of young children.

By maintaining strict and clear boundaries, however, writers can work. And the family can enjoy the knowledge that children who entertain themselves tend to develop better imaginations than kids whose parents pander to their every need throughout the day.

The Clones

Finding the time to write is one of the top difficulties for writers. Writing often occurs during early mornings, late nights, and weekends. When we consider that being a writer isn’t just about writing books anymore, it’s understandable why most writers we know complain they need to be cloned.

Once the manuscript is complete, there’s social media and marketing to perform. In lieu of clones, many spouses are involved with marketing, blogging, website design, managing accounts on Facebook and Twitter, and more.

Although writing is a solitary activity, it’s also worth remembering that producing finished books is a team effort. Everyone in a writer’s family plays his or her part.

We’re using “handicaps” in quotes because things that used to be serious obstacles for writers are becoming less so with technology and helpful, supportive families. See our blog about writing being a family affair here.

Vision

We recently met a successfully published author who has been nearly blind from retinitis pigmentosa since her early 20s. She uses software that turns her speech into text, and turns text to speech, so that she can write and edit her work.

Nuance’s Dragon Naturally Speaking is an example of software that can help vision-impaired users, including speech input, text-to-speech, and OCR. Windows also has free speech-recognition software that can be useful. NVDA is one of several free screen readers that can help people with vision problems use their computers.

Dyslexia

If you have dyslexia, it needn’t hold you back from being a successful writer. One important word-processor feature will help you get your work “ready to go” – the spell check.

Assistive technology has helped seriously dyslexic authors succeed. Again, Dragon Naturally Speaking can help dyslexic authors improve their spelling accuracy and make the process of writing much smoother. WordQ and SpeakQ also helps dyslexic writers get on with their work.

In addition to that, you’ll find support in critique groups, where people can help you to smooth out spelling problems in manuscripts. Closer to home, you might rely on a supportive spouse to review your drafts before you submit them to agents or publishers. We met a couple of authors recently whose husbands are their best editors. One author overcame serious dyslexia to write many novels.

Mobility

You don’t have to go to the post office to submit your heavy manuscript to agents. Many agents prefer the convenience of digital submissions. If you have a computer in your home and an email address, you’re good to go. In addition to being much faster and more cost-effective than the post office, emailing manuscripts allows you to do your bit for the environment.

Age

Age is considered an impairment to pursuing many careers. Not so for authors. You can write into your eighties and beyond. John le Carré, Diana Athill, and Toni Morrison are great examples of writers still going strong in their later years.

If your imagination will let you fly, you can go where you need to go.

As technology continues to advance, obstacles that once held people back from being writers are no longer insurmountable. Whatever your difficulty, keep searching and you can almost always find a solution.

One of the most challenging aspects of writing is finding time to write. Being an author takes dedication, persistence, and time, especially when writing is not your day job, or when you have children, college, demanding pets, or other obligations.

If you are moving from an amateur writer to a professional, you may also be discovering that marketing, sales, contract negotiation, and promoting – on top of researching, writing, and editing – are dominating your day. And yet, busy people are writing novels all the time. How are they doing it?
Answer: One word at a time.
Here are 3 time management tips that will help you achieve your goals.

Log Off Facebook

Don’t stop at Facebook. Get offline. Unplug your phone, draw your curtains, and pretend to be out.
If you absolutely must be online, you might try Freedom. It aims to help you concentrate by blocking distracting websites and apps. RescueTime, on the other hand, will track your internet usage and motivate you to spend your time productively.

Find or make a fixed time to write, every day

Try to assign a regular time that can be your work time every day. It might only be a few minutes. You might be able to carve out as much as an hour or two. The point is that it should be uninterrupted time and it should be regular.
It might not be comfortable. Vladimir Nabokov famously crafted “Lolita” and other novels on index cards while his wife drove him from location to location. As a single parent, J.K. Rowling wrote her first novel wherever she could while her daughter was napping. She wrote every evening, too, typing up her longhand pages, and then continued to work full-time while writing the sequel.
Your writing time might not be ideal. It might be very early in the morning or late at night. It might be during your commute on the train or lunch breaks. If you are consistent, though, you’ll be improving your skill and moving towards achieving your writing goals.

Perform writing sprints

To perform a writing sprint, set a timer for your desired length of time – say 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour – and then write, without self-editing, for the entire duration.

Shorter sprints might be more effective. The idea is that they will train you to achieve a flow state quickly. The more sprints you do, the more you will get used to writing fluidly, on demand.

When you have kids or other obligations, you can’t always schedule your life in a way that is ideal for you and your writing. If you can learn to get into ‘writing mode’ whenever you have the opportunity, this will help you reach the end of your novel.

While there is merit in writing and publishing quickly, don’t forget the virtues of just putting one word after another and keeping going until it’s done.
Remember the big picture of why you are doing this, try not to get lost in the small details, and you will get there.