JL Lycette on How I Write When I Have A Demanding “Day Job”: It’s Okay Not To Write Every Day

By: JL Lycette

Many people are proponents of writing consistently every day and setting goals. For example, 1000 words a day. 

But what if you can’t write every day. If you have a demanding day job or a busy family, or maybe, I don’t know, you just don’t like writing every day. Can you still be a writer?

I am here before you (virtually) to show you that, yes, you can. My first book was published last month (March 2023), and my second book will be published later this year, in November 2023, and I do not write every day.

I didn’t start writing fiction until I was 43 years old. By that time, I had a busy (non-writing) career and family. How the heck was I to fit this new writing habit into my already busy life?

It’s a good thing I didn’t research that question back at the beginning, or I might have given up. 

When I started writing my first book in 2016, I didn’t know if anything would ever come of it, let alone whether it would ever be published. But somehow, I had this story idea in my brain and characters that wouldn’t leave me alone until their story was told.

I mostly wrote on weekends in large chunks of words. I didn’t know at the time that it wasn’t common to write 4000-5000 words in a day. And one weekend, which I remember now like a fever dream, I wrote 10,000 words in a session. (A feat I haven’t been able to repeat).

It was only when the book was finished, and I googled “what to do when you finish writing a book,” that I came across all the writing advice.

But here’s the thing I’ve learned about advice: take what works for you, leave what doesn’t. If the idea of writing in long sessions for hours on the weekends horrifies you, don’t try that. Maybe writing in smaller sessions each day works for you. 

I mean, does it matter if you write 1000 words a day or 7000 words in a weekend? As long as the words eventually get written? One could paint a little bit each day or a lot for an entire weekend, and both approaches will result in a finished painting. 

I mostly write on my laptop, in Word (yes, I’m a dinosaur), but sometimes I grab a notebook and pen; or in the middle of the night, I have to write something in the Notes app on my phone. Sometimes on the commute to work, I get an idea and have to scribble it as fast as possible on a blank piece of paper in five minutes before starting my day job.

Some days, when I get home from work, I’m in the mood to write. Most weekdays, however, I don’t have the energy. So I don’t write those days. I wait until the weekend.

There are a lot of caveats to my advice. First of all, my kids are older. They’re tweens and teens, and they actually sleep now. Like, a lot, on the weekends. So I can write for hours on those mornings before they wake up. I’ve had other parents write to ask me to please tell them how to write with young children. And my answer to them was: I don’t know how parents with very young children write. Maybe some of them can comment here and tell us.

But here’s the thing, none of us are superhuman. Don’t try to hold yourself to some imaginary standard that probably doesn’t even exist. That’s something I’ve had to learn in both my day job and my writing journey.

The best way to write is the way that works for you.

I hope this post will help you to write the way you want, when you want, and not beat yourself up if you can’t—or simply choose not to—write every day.

JL / Jennifer Lycette is a novelist, award-winning essayist, rural physician, wife, and mother. She has a degree in biochemistry from the University of San Francisco and attained her medical degree at the University of Washington. Mid-career, she discovered narrative medicine in her path back from physician burnout and has been writing ever since. Her essays can be found in Intima, NEJM, JAMA and other journals; and online at Doximity and Medscape. She is an alumna of the 2019 Pitch Wars Mentoring program. Her other published speculative fiction can be found in the anthology And If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing: Parenting Stories Gone Speculative (Alternating Current Press). The Algorithm Will See You Now is her first novel and is a 2023 Screencraft Cinematic Book Competition Finalist. Her second novel (title and cover reveals coming soon!) will be out in November 2023.

The Saturday Slash

Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.

I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.

If the Saturday Slash has been helpful to you in the past, or if you’d like for me to take a look at your query please consider making a donation, if you are able.

If you’re ready to take the next step, I also offer editing services.

My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.

I am seeking representation for IN THE SPACES BETWEEN, a dual-POV adult psychological thriller complete at 95,000 words. I generally encourage people not to start with title, genre and word count simply b/c everyone who is querying has those - start out with something they don't, the hook for your own book.

There is an ever-growing list of shoulds in ten-year-old Esmee’s life. She should have friends, she should cry after her mom’s suicide, and she should fear the creature that is rumored to live in the forest behind her house. Good hook - I think start with this! But she doesn’t. And when a whisper beckons her into the woods forest, it gives her a sense of belonging and lulls her into a trance, until she exits hours later covered in blood. Not sure about the word "until" here, as it signifies something has ended or changed - which you may be referring to the trance, but I think it needs to be clarified.

Esmee’s dad, Peter, struggles to make sense of his new reality. The pain of losing his wife is unbearable, and the shadowed memories of his upbringing are creeping back in. He reminds himself that he isn’t his father, and his past is behind him. But when a stranger is standing at his wife’s grave, Peter’s grief is stained with questions, and he spirals in search for the truth. This is good until we get to "But when a stranger..." everything after that is extremely vague - graves, questions, search for truth - that could be anybody's book. You need more specifics about what THIS book has in it, that others might not.

Esmee’s reality becomes convoluted by her obsession, the creature’s voice overtakes her and incites increasingly violent behavior. I think collapse Esmee's paras together, this one doesn't really add anything and doesn't deserve to stand alone.

Peter unravels his wife’s secrets.Like what? Again, being vague won't win points in a query. And when he discovers that the same darkness that troubled her may run through Esmee, he attempts to get his daughter help, because he can’t lose her too. He's certain he can keep his family together, and safe… until Esmee’s actions threaten to shatter everything Peter has ever loved. How? In what way?

I work in Finance and live in Salt Lake City. When I’m not writing or working, I’m out in the mountains.

You have a good start here, but you need to get those specifics in there. Right now there's just a vague danger, and I'm not sure what the goals are, and what obstacles stand in the way of those goals. It sounds like Peter is the one who will have those goals, so I would use Esmee's intro (b/c it's quite good), and then have one para for Peter where you explain his struggles, what he wants now, and why he can't have that.

Charles Salzberg on What I Was Thinking If I Had Been Thinking

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. 

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Charles Salzberg, author of Man on the Run, which releases on April 18

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

I do. Three years ago, I wrote a novel called Second Story Man, about a master burglar, Francis Hoyt, and the two lawmen, a recently retired Connecticut State investigator and a recently suspended Cuban-American Miami cop, who aim to bring him to justice. Without giving too much of a spoiler, at the end of the novel Hoyt “walks away” from any consequences which essential turns him into a fugitive. I had no intention of ever writing another novel with Hoyt in it and, in fact, my next novel, Canary in the Coal Mine, had nothing to do with Hoyt or breaking and entering. When I finished Canary, I was looking for my next novel, but the more I thought about it the more I began to wonder what would happen to a guy like Hoyt when he’s on the run? He'd have to abandon the East Coast, where he was arrested, but where would he go and what would he do. The question haunted me until I finally figured out that by writing my next novel about him, I could answer that question. Hence, the inspiration for Man on the Run came from Second Story Man.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

I’m one of those writers who never outlines his books. In fact, not only do I not know what’s going to happen in the next chapter, I don’t even know what’s going to happen in the next paragraph. So, I usually start with the what if question. First, I decided where he’d wind up: the West Coast. The rest of the plot came directly from the pandemic. Not writing about the pandemic, or even mentioning it, but rather relating to what I did during the lock-down, which was listen to dozens and dozens of true crime podcasts. Finally, it got to the point where I decided that one of my main characters would be a female former journalist who has a true crime podcast. And then, what if that podcaster happened to be doing a series on master burglar Francis Hoyt? And what if Hoyt found out about it? What would he do? And at the same time, what if Hoyt was approached by someone to pull a job—a big one? And so, with those elements of the story, I was able to weave a plot, as I wrote.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

That sounds like a bit of a nightmare and no, that’s never happened to me—probably because I don’t have the whole story when I start. But I have had characters “run away from me.” By that I mean the characters begin to take on a life of their own and they refuse to do or say something I might want them to. When it gets to that point, if it gets to that point, it’s a good thing because it means I’ve created real, flesh and blood characters with a mind of their own. I stop manipulating them and they start manipulating themselves.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

I’m not really very much of a “story” guy. I usually start with a character of a situation and then, if I have something to say about it, the plot will start to develop. So, I’d have to say that story ideas don’t come to me too often, but thank goodness characters do.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

It’s more like the story choosing me rather than me choosing the story. I can sometimes decide I want to write something on a certain subject—like writing a novel that takes place in the world or rare books, or Hollywood movies, or even based on stories people have told me. For instance, in one of the classes I teach I had a student named Julia Scully, who led a fascinating life—mostly in the world of photography. Her life story was so amazing that I asked her if I could use part of it for the Swann novel I was working on, and she said yes. By the way, she’s 94 now (she lives across the street from me) and I highly recommend her amazing memoir, Outside Passage, about growing up in Alaska during the Depression.

I have 6 cats and a Dalmatian (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

Unless you count my alter-ego, who’s usually too lazy to sit with me in front of the computer, I work alone. Which is probably a good thing, since I get distracted very easily and will jump at any opportunity not to write.

After a successful career as a magazine journalist for New York Magazine, Esquire, GQ, Redbook, New York Times etc., book reviewer, nonfiction book writer, Charles Salzberg made a move to fulfilling that dream of becoming a novelist when his first novel, Swann’s Last Song, was published and wound up being nominated for a Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel. After losing, he swore he’d keep writing crime novels until he won something. After four more novels in the Henry Swann series, he wrote two successful stand-alone novels, Devil in the Hole (named one of the best crime novels of 2013 by Suspense Magazine) and Second Story Man (nominated for another Shamus and a David Award, both of which, true to form, he lost). He finally broke the losing streak when Second Story Man was named winner of the Beverly Hills Book Award. He’s also published three novellas, to be found in the collections Triple Shot, Three Strikes and Third Degree. He teaches writing in New York City, is a Founding Member of New York Writers Workshop, and is on the boards of PrisonWrites and Mystery Writers of America-NY.