Whenever I’m asked about writing and tips and techniques I recommend, one of the things I always talk about is the Page A Day Challenge. This is the technique that allowed me to write all my novels and books so far and one that I personally feel turned my writing life around.

I Don’t Have Time To Write – Make Writing A Priority

Like most people, I have a day job, and this means that I don’t have hours to devote to writing every day. I have a small block of time every morning and this is when my writing gets done. But before I tell you more about that, I think it’s important to make something clear too. If you have a dream to become a writer, the only way you will ever achieve that is to write.

I remember listening to a talk by the late Wayne Dyer. He said that if you want something you have to make it a priority, and he was right. I had dreams of being a writer, dreams of seeing my books in print, but that is what they remained because my writing was never a priority. It was always when I have time, when my work is done, when this happens, etc. Writing was not a priority.

The Page A Day Challenge

Back in June 2016, I came across a post in one of my writing groups challenging everyone to write a page a day the following month. I loved the idea and thought why not give it a go. I’d tried and failed at NaNoWriMo (50,000 words in a month is hard), and I’d tried setting daily word count goals too, but something always got in the way. I was determined to make the Page A Day Challenge work.

I took a leaf out of Wayne Dyer’s book too and decided that my page a day would be completed first thing in the morning. A page wasn’t that much, and I could easily slot it into my schedule.

Like most people, I have a regular morning routine, especially during the week. I get up, have my tea, call the kids for school, sit down and check Facebook notifications and emails, get dressed, brush my teeth, etc. I noticed that I had about twenty minutes in between Emma going to school and Conor going to school and I decided to make use of this time.

The great thing about the Page A Day Challenge is that it is unique to everyone. For me, because I like to handwrite my stories, a page a day is an A5 page in my notebook. This works out at roughly 100 – 130 words. I could easily do this right?

Beginning on the 1^st of July 2016, I sat down every morning and wrote my page a day. Most of the time I completed more than one page and by the end of the month, I was hooked. I kept going and wrote Finding Forever, my first novella which was published on the 31^st January 2017. The day after I typed “The End” in Finding Forever, I began a new story which became Save Her Soul published on the 31^st August 2017. The process continued and I’ve written so much since then.

Things did stop after I completed Winterland in October 2018 and days and weeks went by and I realised I hadn’t written anything. I stopped doing my Page A Day and fell back into the old habit of saying I would write when I had the time. I had also stopped handwriting during Winterland and was working on my iPad adding 1,000 to 1,500 words every day. It worked because I devoted time to it each morning, but once the novel was finished and I wasn’t actively working on another book, my writing faltered.

On the 19^th of January, this year, I started the Page A Day challenge again. I had no idea what I was writing because my focus was on edits for Winterland, but I knew I had to get back to writing. I wrote 2 pages that day (233 words) and I’ve continued every single day, Saturday and Sunday included. I now have over 10,000 words written of a new story and it feels wonderful.

It’s easy to put writing second and say that you’ll do it when you have time, but that doesn’t always happen. Things crop up, time gets away from you, and before you know it weeks have gone by. The Page A Day challenge is a great way to stop this from happening. It’s not a huge word count, it’s not a huge amount of time either. It is the length of time it takes you to write a page, whether that’s in an A4 notebook, an A5 like mine, or even a page on your computer.

One page a day is 365 pages a year and that is a novel. And of course, if you do more than one page a day, your novel is finished a lot quicker.

My challenge for you today is to make your writing a priority. Add it to your daily schedule as you would brushing your teeth or hair. Do it first thing especially if you have a day job to go to. Those five or ten minutes every morning can make sure a huge difference and you’ll find that you start your work day on a high. You’ve already completed your writing so no matter what happens you are ahead of yourself.

Are you up for the challenge?

Do you have any other tips that work for you? If so, please feel free to share them in the comments as I’d love to hear what works for you.

Until next time,

Keep reading and writing,

Amanda