How to persevere in a busy life

You feel like you need to write every day to keep up your skills but can’t because of life?
Let me [once again] draw a parallel between writing and sports, and in my case, swimming:
My swim club card says “tous les jours” (every day), but I can’t go to practice every day because I have a family, a day job, tasks in the household, and I also need to sleep occasionally. If I want to improve my butterfly, or get faster in crawl, or perfect my back stroke flip turn, I should go to practice as often as possible. Since I can’t go every day, I make do with dryland exercises on the other days.

In writing as in swimming, there are “dryland exercises”:

  • Read. Books in your genre and age group. Books for research. Books for pleasure. Books for your kids (read them together).
  • Brainstorm.
  • Do research.
  • Play scenes out in your head.
  • Make the food/bake the cake your protagonist cooks in chapter 2.
  • Dig out those notes from the writer workshop you attended.
  • Look up a grammar rule that keeps tripping you up.
  • Chat with other writers on social media.
  • Go to a book shop or a library.
  • Read.
  • Repeat.
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