Is time management a skill you should have as a writer?

Greetings writers, readers, authors, and want-to-bees!At one of those writers conventions where you get to pitch your work in progress for X dollars, I sat in on several of the speakers and mini classes. I am not going to say it was a waste of time, but… I should have had my butt in this chair writing or managing the business instead of sitting there listening to them. It might have just been that convention, but…Let’s talk about the business of writing a little more.

WREM: The Framework That Keeps Me Honest

Last time I wrote about this, I coined the acronym WREM: Write, Research, Edit, Market. It’s the four pillars of this gig, and if you’re honest with yourself, most writers are great at one or two and terrible at the others. (Most of us love the W and quietly pretend the M doesn’t exist.)This blog post? This is the M. Marketing. You never know; someone might read it and want to check out my books. If so… go here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Scott-Taylor/author/B0BQCX3SRHSee what I did there? That’s marketing. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It just has to exist.

The Convention Conundrum

Here’s the thing about writers conventions: they sell you hope by the hour. Pitch sessions, agent speed-dating, panels on “breaking in.” Some of it is genuinely valuable. Conferences can help you make contact with new authors, publishers, and agents, and the smart approach is to treat the event like a business investment: think like a businessperson and present yourself as a smart buy. The best events blend craft workshops, marketing sessions, and networking with agents and editors.But here’s what nobody tells you: the value of a convention is what you do before and after it, not what happens in the ballroom. If you pay $X to pitch your book and you haven’t spent time making the book (or your author platform) worth pitching, you’ve bought a lottery ticket, not a career move.So before you register for the next one, ask yourself:

1. What specifically do I need from this event? (Contacts? Craft? Motivation? A kick in the pants?)
2. Could that X dollars be better spent on an editor, cover art, or ads?
3. Would the hours be better spent in the chair?

Sometimes the answer is yes, go. Sometimes the answer is: your butt belongs in the chair.

Time Management: The Great Equalizer

Now let’s talk about using your allocated time well.I am retired, so I can spend any day that ends in a Y writing for as long as I desire. Many of you still work, and that is not an option, so time management is a skill you should learn, not a nice-to-have.Here’s the honest math. If you work a full-time job, you don’t have less ambition than I do; you have less unstructured time. That means your time needs structure more than mine does. A few approaches that work:

1. Treat writing like a shift, not a mood. Waiting for inspiration is a hobby. Scheduling it is a business. Thirty minutes before work, thirty minutes at lunch, or a protected hour after the kids are in bed: whatever it is, put it on the calendar like a dentist appointment.
2. Match the task to the time slot. Not all WREM tasks need the same brain. Drafting (Write) needs deep focus. Research can be done in scraps. Editing works in medium chunks. Marketing (social posts, newsletters, blog posts like this one) can be done in 15-minute pockets. Stop trying to draft a chapter in a 20-minute window and failing, then calling yourself undisciplined. That’s not a discipline problem; that’s a scheduling problem.
3. Audit where your writing hours actually go. Track one week. Most writers discover they have more time than they thought; it’s just currently being spent on things that don’t end with a finished manuscript.
4. Protect the chair. The single most profitable piece of real estate in this business is the seat of your writing chair. Every hour there compounds. Every hour listening to someone else talk about writing… may or may not.

Marketing Without Losing Your Soul

Here’s a mindset shift that took me too long to learn: don’t chase dollars; invest in people. Put energy into connecting with your readers, think about who they are and what they want, and fold your creativity into your bookselling instead of treating marketing like a punishment.This blog post is exactly that. I’m not shouting “BUY MY BOOKS” into the void (okay, I linked my Amazon page, but still). I’m talking with you about something we both care about: the craft and the business of this weird, wonderful job. If you like how I think, you might like how I write. That’s the whole trick.

The Bottom Line

Writing is a business. The creative part is the product; everything else (conventions, pitches, platforms, this very post) is the shop around it. You don’t have to love the business side, but you do have to show up for it. And when you’re deciding between a $500 convention seat and 50 hours in the chair?More often than not, the chair wins.Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a W to get back to. And if any of this resonated, or you just want to see what all that chair time produced, my books are right here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Scott-Taylor/author/B0BQCX3SRHWrite on. 📝

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