5 Ways To Balance Creativity With Life As A Young Writer

One of the biggest challenges for a creative young person is finding the time to be creative after spending all day tiring their brain with work. For young writers, this issue is especially prominent. 

Writers who attend school, whether it be middle, high, or college, spend the entire day focusing on work. They do assignment after assignment, project after project, only to come home to hours of homework and a burnt out creative energy. 

As someone who struggled with this myself while I was in school, here are five tips for staying creative despite feeling overwhelmed with other things going on in your life!

1. Set Aside Time

Sometimes, the best way to stay creative in the midst of a busy school and/or work schedule is to plan out specific times to do so. Set aside a time in your daily life that you dedicate to your passion project, whether it be ten minutes or two hours. If you're someone who has a tight schedule, why not pencil in a time slot for your writing? Making writing part of your daily routine can even train your brain to be prepared to write at a specific time, just like it trains itself to be prepared to learn at school. 

2. Allow Yourself Breaks

The worst thing a creative person can do is kick themselves for not producing enough content. Well, I'm here to tell you: all that does is kill creativity, which is exactly what we're trying to avoid in the first place! If you are genuinely in need of a mental break and you feel as though you're forcing yourself to write, maybe a break is exactly what you need. Take a week or two (or however long you need) to regroup. Continue to work hard through school until you feel like there is a lull in the chaos, and then get back to it! Your creative energy will thank you. 

3. Make Writing Something To Look Forward To

At a certain point, writing can start to feel like work if you take it too seriously, even if it's something you want to do for a job. Not everything has to feel like a chore. So, make writing fun again! For example, if you write at a desk, decorate it! If you like coffee or tea, make some and put it in your favorite mug! If you can listen to music while you work, make a playlist specific to your work in progress to spark some creativity! 

4. Don't Be Afraid To Start New Projects

A lot of writers think that they need to stick to one work in progress at a time in order to be successful and productive. While that may be the case for some, not everyone operates in the same way. If you are someone who is constantly coming up with new ideas, but you feel like you can't do anything with them because you should focus on your main project, maybe playing with a new idea is exactly what you need to feel creative again. Sometimes allowing your imagination to create a new story can give you ideas for your current one. 

5. Write When You Can

For those of you who are less structured in your days but still busy, sometimes pulling out the notes app on your phone in the middle of school is the best thing you can do for yourself. Don't be embarrassed to pull out your phone at lunch and write down an idea when it pops into your head. If you have free time in a class and all of your work is done, use it to write! Riding the bus on the way home from school? Write then. Walking to your next class? Write then. Arriving to class early? Write then. Any moment of spare time you can utilize to further your story is worth taking!

At the end of the day, you know yourself. Do what works for you, whatever that may look like. If you're struggling with staying creative and getting yourself to write, try a few of these tips! You never know what could help you.