Tips to Divide Up Your Writing Time Into Valuable Chunks

by Lynn H. Blackburn @LynnHBlackburn

Last month, I wrote a post, Meet Your Writing Goals This Year with These Valuable Tips where I mentioned the idea of the Manuscript Time Block (MTB) and this month, we’re going to do a deep dive into this concept! 

First off, this is not an original idea of mine. My knowledge of MTBs comes from Becca Syme of Write Better-Faster.

This is how Becca defines an MTB:

MTBs are 30 minutes of time spent in your manuscript. So if you think, plan, plot, or write for 30 minutes, it counts as an MTB. That’s it!

I have to tell y’all—this idea has been a game changer for me. Here’s why: 

I’m not a write every day writer. I’m not wired that way. And for a very long time, I worried that maybe I wasn’t a “real” writer because I not only didn’t, but truly couldn’t write every day. 

I’ve learned a lot about myself, my wiring, and my process over the past decade or so, and I’m more confident in who I am and how I work. 

Let’s pause for a moment to give the people who know me well time to laugh hysterically at the idea of me being confident in my process. Especially since as you read these words, I’m a month away from a deadline and therefore am in full panic mode. I’m sending daily, if not hourly, texts telling my writing confidantes that I’m a fraud and this is the worst book ever written. 

Whew. Now that they’ve composed themselves, let’s continue. 

It’s true that I’m not always confident! But I am okay with being someone who doesn’t write every day. My process involves more thinking time than writing time, which is why MTBs are so effective for me. 

If you look back at Becca’s definition, you’ll see that THINKING is part of an MTB. In fact, it’s the FIRST THING ON THE LIST! 

Hallelujah!

If you’ve been to lots of conferences, hung around with lots of writers, or read lots of writing blogs, you may be walking around with the misapprehension that the only thing that counts as writing is…writing. 

NOT TRUE! 

Agatha Christie famously said that the best time to plan a novel is while washing the dishes. 

And how many times have you had an a-ha moment in the shower? Shower epiphanies happen so often that you can actually buy waterproof shower notes to capture your brilliance! 

If you think about it (see what I did there?) you’ll remember that many of your best ideas and breakthroughs have happened when you’re somewhere other than your keyboard. 

I think most writers experience this at some level. But for some of us, the thinking time that happens away from the keyboard isn’t just a delightful moment of serendipity that helps us reach our goal. It is absolutely critical to our process. 

I need time to think and process a story, away from my keyboard, or the book will not happen. I can force myself to sit in front of the computer and pound out words, but if the thinking time hasn’t happened first, the session will be wildly ineffective at best and downright counterproductive at worst. 

But I have to confess that far too often I’ve used this “I need time to think” part of my process as an excuse not to work consistently on my manuscript. The MTB takes that excuse away and provides me with an alternative way to track my work. ;) 

The MTB gives me a way to hold myself accountable year round, not just when I’m on a deadline. 

So far in 2024, it’s been fairly easy to measure progress with my word count. But later this month when the manuscript is complete, there’s an excellent chance that despite spending hours hard at work, my word count will go down. 

If I use word count as my only metric, watching the word count go in reverse is demoralizing! 

But if I use MTBs as my metric, this isn’t an issue. Every 30 minutes of work = 1 MTB. It doesn’t matter how many words I write or delete. It doesn’t matter if I get to the end of the day and the manuscript is even more of a hot mess than it was when I started. The MTB gives me a way to track my manuscript efforts, and even a tough day of writing will still generate multiple MTBs. As an over-achieving, list-making, task-completing kind of girl, this makes me very happy!

And it will be particularly crucial in March and April when my brain is fried from the effort of completing a story. I won’t even attempt to get new words written on my next manuscript until May at the earliest, but that doesn’t mean I can’t continue to be consistent with my writing. Given that I’m not using word count to determine success, March and April should include plenty of MTBs that are made up of research and daydreaming time. 

The MTB has freed me from the tyranny of the word count goal. As I mentioned last month, my #24for24 writing goal is 24 MTBs a month. My hope is that focusing on the MTB rather than the word count will help me reach the word counts I need faster than ever before and with less stress. 

I’ll have to let you know how that works out….next year! 

In the meantime, what do you think of this concept? What would be important for you to include in the MTB list? I’d love to hear your thoughts! 

Grace and peace,

TWEETABLE

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Tips to Divide Up Your Writing Time Into Valuable Chunks from @LynnHBlackburn on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Don't Miss the Rest of Lynn's Posts on Goal Setting!

January: Meet Your Writing Goals This Year with These Valuable Tips
February: Tips to Divide Up Your Writing Time Into Valuable Chunks

March: Low Bar/High Bar Goal Setting for Writers

Lynn H. Blackburn is the award-winning author of Unknown Threat, Malicious Intent, and Under Fire, as well as the Dive Team Investigations series. She loves writing swoon-worthy southern suspense because her childhood fantasy was to become a spy, but her grown-up reality is that she's a huge chicken and would have been caught on her first mission. She prefers to live vicariously through her characters by putting them into terrifying situations while she's sitting at home in her pajamas! She lives in Simpsonville, South Carolina, with her true love, Brian, and their three children. Learn more at www.lynnhblackburn.com.