Writing would be so much easier to get done if it weren't for that pesky need to eat.
If you're like nearly any burgeoning writer, you know that a few half-edited short stories don't exactly pay the bills. And by "don't exactly" I mean "ahaha, HAHA, haaa, No." Meaning, in short, that a large portion of us work a large portion of each day for a large portion of the week on something other than writing. When you consider the number of hours that go into a full-length novel, trying to squeeze it in between a workday and anything remotely resembling a social life becomes an experiment in non-Euclidian geometry.
Mind you, there are folks out there who make quite a good living writing, and not just the novelists. Pieces of periodicals may not pay through the nose, but when your target is about 2000 words, the sky's the limit. That said, until you've honed your writing ethic and sharpened your wit on the grindstone of failed experiments, it's difficult to guarantee yourself a reliable paycheck unless you happen to strike gold right out of the box.
Professional writing is honestly a lot like professional sports that way: for every success story you see, there are tens of thousands of hopefuls who have gone wanting. Even many who eventually succeed in the craft started their work while employed full-time as something entirely different. Personally, I find it a lot easier to write when I'm not being interrupted every few minutes by a stomach crying out for a meal that consists of more than Japanese noodles.
The trouble is that work so often leaves you little room left to get any actual writing done. It's rare that a job provides you with the space and tools to write; rarer still that it provide you with the time. Waiting until your shift is up means cramming writing time in between the commute, a meal, and the time you need to be in bed so you can wake up tomorrow and do it all again.
It's a little like working while still in school: you have two things you need to do every day, and you have to keep at them both to be successful and sustained. Work is the thing that lets you keep paying to go to school, so given the choice, work always wins. But sometimes it's worth it to risk coming in a few minutes late after spending an extra hour or two the night before preparing for your final.
School is the thing that gets you to bigger and brighter things one day. Work is the thing that keeps you fed in the here-and-now. It's the same way when it comes to writing.
If you're working, writing, and in school, god bless you, and what the hell are you doing wasting time online? There's work to be done!
Time isn't the only limiting factor: even a job that doesn't force you to work after hours can leave you exhausted half the time, or distracted enough with ongoing projects not to be able to focus on that next scene you have to sort out. Add to this that you may, occasionally, want to talk to or even see other people, and your writing time has dried up to a pittance before it even began.
Often, the trick is to find a job that will either let you write during the day, or one that makes up for the difference in worth. Working in customer service won't exactly give you hours of time for writing, but the number of colorful personalities you'll encounter form a ready mosaic to draw your character quirks from later, and there is a certain sense of justice in carving to stone the rank displeasure of those you least like dealing with, laid bare for generations to enjoy.
Even jobs that won't let you write on the clock (because, let's face it, you shouldn't. Sure, it beats stealing office supplies, but the fact remains: you were hired to do a job, and it should take precedence over that one fight scene that's been giving you so much trouble all week) will often allow you enough time at lunch to get in a page or two.
Eating alone rarely requires an hour's time. Bring the food back to your desk or take a steno pad somewhere quiet and rattle off half a scene. Do it every day for a month and you have about 15-20 thousand words without ever picking up a pen after hours. That roughly equates to two novels a year. On your lunch hour.
If you get vacation time, use it to take a writing day now and then. Since your writing follows your schedule, you can take a day off in the middle of the season when everyone else is staying in the office because it's "just another week." One good solid 9-to-5 day of writing can be the miracle that saves your deadline. Don't be afraid to take a day when you need it. If all goes well, one day you'll be in the habit of 8-hour writing days like these all year long.
In the meantime, don't quit your day job.
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