Writing Schedules Are Overrated

A schedule limits your creativity.

As a new writer, I have found that there are a lot of rules. You need to have a writing schedule and stick to it. You need to read a lot. You need to choose between quantity or quality, between art and business.

There are so many “rules” that you are supposed to follow. It’s as if you are joining some club or association where you are being told, “this is how we do things, and if you are going to be one of us, then this is what you need to do.”

I don’t like rules. This is primarily because I don’t like being told what to do. I also find rules stifling; they cramp my style. I especially don’t like rules that aren’t based in logic.

For example, I can understand why you shouldn’t build a fire to roast weenies in the middle of the forest. The fire might get out of control, and then you are dealing with a massive fire that even Smokey the Bear can’t put out. That rule makes sense and serves to protect people and animals, and trees. It’s a good rule, and people should follow it.

I continually see articles and books proclaiming the importance of a writing schedule and that if you don’t stick to it, you will not succeed as a writer. Ever. Your dream will die.

I may be new to sharing my writing with the public, but this pressure to have a writing schedule is a bunch of bullshit.

Allow me to tell you why that is. During my college years, it was easy to stick to a schedule. I lived in a tiny apartment, I attended classes, and I had virtually no other obligations. Those days were fabulous, but they are gone.

Now I have many more years of life under my belt, and I have responsibilities to others, like my husband. I even have a cat with diabetes that I care for. Not to mention, I have a mood disorder that I have to accommodate for lack of a better term. If I had small children, I would lose the little bit of my sanity I have left.

Requirements like these setup people for failure and make them feel like losers when they don’t follow through. I don’t understand the assumption that you will produce quantity and quality writing at a specified time. It’s not likely.

And let’s pretend that the planets align and you can sit down and write when you are supposed to according to your schedule. What happens when the dog is barking, the kid is crying, and the doorbell is ringing? What doesn’t happen is writing.

I assume that the push for a writing schedule comes from the need to be consistent with your writing. We all hear about consistency, and I understand that you cannot be a writer if you don’t actually write. That makes sense.

What makes no sense is that you have to write at the same time every day or for a specific amount of time. I don’t understand this rigidity that necessitates a schedule.

My writing was delayed by months because of this stupid writing schedule rule. I kept trying to schedule a time to write, and it never worked out. Something always came up. So, I would plan something for the next day; this would be my new schedule. Of course, something came up, and that didn’t work out either.

Months passed because I was trying to do things the way that I was told that I was supposed to if I was serious about a future as a writer. I will never understand why a group of people who emphasize creativity are so fixated on self-imposed rigidity.

Some of us are better off living in a life of fitting things in around the things that absolutely can’t be moved. Yet, even when we do that, something can still come up.

Obviously, other people are having problems with this rigidity, or there wouldn’t be so many articles telling you how to create a schedule that will work for you and how to stick to your schedule. If it was easy and everyone was doing it, no one would talk about it because no one would need help. They would do it.

I think writing should focus more on quantity and quality than on forcing myself to do something simply because it’s a specific time of the day. I propose more flexibility and less setting myself up for failure due to the rigidity of a plan.

Unfortunately, many would-be writers have significant problems with this unnecessary requirement of showing commitment to their craft by assigning a job-like schedule to it. Let me tell you, scheduling your writing is not essential. The important part is writing. It doesn’t matter when you do it, so long as you do it.

And the better you get at writing, the easier it becomes to do it anywhere at any time. That’s when you tap into your real creativity; when it’s spontaneous. I make sure that when the urge to write hits me, I am ready to go, whether it’s using a notes app on my phone, a pen and notebook, or voice to text app.

This whole concept of needing a set schedule started when we did not have the technology to write anywhere and at any time. Now we can accommodate our bursts of creativity. Times have changed, come into the twenty-first century.

If you are using a schedule and it works for it, that’s great, but you’re limiting yourself if you’re not seizing every opportunity to write. If you are serious about being a writer, you will write whenever and wherever possible. Schedules are limiting. See, I just flipped the script on you.

But just to humor those who say that I need a writing schedule, I created one that works for me. My writing schedule consists of me doing my very best to write every day when I can focus and have the brain waves available. That may last for an hour or several hours. I can’t tell you because I don’t know. It may not be specific, like committing to writing every morning between certain hours or for a particular time, but it’s the best I can do.

I won’t be minimized because I don’t follow the rules set forth by people who think they have already made the cut. I won’t listen to those who try to make me feel inferior because I choose not to restrict myself. This isn’t a fraternity that I’m pledging; I refuse to be hazed.

Power to the wannabe writers and down with schedules and boundaries. Write when you can, for as long as you can, and as often as you can. The fact that you write is what makes you a writer. A set schedule does not a writer make. You do you.

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Linda Kowalchek is a work in progress and a member of the typewriter generation. She spends her time with her husband and her rescue cats waiting for golf balls to crash through their windows. PSA: Don’t live next to a golf course.