I think the biggest obstacle for aspiring artists is not scheduling, energy, location, etc., but the perfectionist mindset. In my experience, it's easy to become paralyzed by trying to create the final product from the start.
It's this mindset that leads people to start thinking things like: "If only I had a cabin in the woods somewhere with a nice espresso machine, I could really do this right."
I once had to write a first draft of a full-length screenplay (160+ pages) for a screenwriting class I took for fun. Our professor made it clear that we shouldn't worry about our scripts sucking because he was 100% sure that they would.
Once you accept that your art will suck in its early drafts/stages, you can focus on cooking out ideas/material to start improving upon. This will be so easy that you will want pen and paper, recording equipment, camera, etc. with you all the time.
The basic problem is that almost any creative process is iterative and recursive. When you think it has to be perfect the first time through, it by definition can't be. You've set yourself up in a loop with no exit conditions. Get to the rest of the program.
"Magazines, editors, agents - they all employ young people making $22,000 a year whose job is to read lots of manuscripts and send back letters telling you that you aren't good enough yet: LET THEM DO IT. It's their job. Don't pre-reject yourself." -Elizabeth Gilbert
I totally agree. Write and let yourself fail. Many writers will talk about "vomiting up" material before going through a process of revision. You have to get words down on paper, and frequently, that process will be blocked by being too critical of the words you are typing. Don't be too critical. This may go against our tendencies as programmers to write worthy code from the start, especially from the TDD perspective. When you are writing creatively, you don't have to generate fully functional (i.e., beautiful) prose right away through micro-iterations. (Write a line, look at it, does it work, refine the line, does it work, look at the paragraph, etc -- that's not the way many pro writers work.) Spew it out, then refine.
After I wrote the above paragraph, I recalled the recording of pg working on an essay (http://etherpad.com/ep/pad/slider/13sentences) and how different it would probably look if it were Stephen stream-of-consciousness King. There's a lot of backtracking as pg hones his words, sentence by sentence. It would be really interesting to see how authors of different backgrounds approach the creative writing process, and whether target work length (essay vs novel) and style (argument vs entertainment) dictates your approach.
There's a notion that when you start creating, your "taste exceeds your craft"* - that is, you have high standards and can't create anything up to those standards. You think everything you do sucks. You have to motor through it though, or you never get any better.
* could not find the exact quote - something about taste vs. craft or art.
"I think the biggest obstacle for aspiring artists is not scheduling, energy, location, etc., but the perfectionist mindset. In my experience, it's easy to become paralyzed by trying to create the final product from the start."
Interesting observations on the road blocks to creating in the book, The War of Art.
Solid writing comes from hard work and there is no shortcut on this.
Successful professional writers are amazingly disciplined (even Hemingway, for all his boozing, had a strict regimen of rising early and writing for many hours first thing, day in and day out).
For non-fiction, good writing correlates strongly with sharp thinking - meaning, thinking topics through carefully to be able to offer important insights that others have missed, understanding context so as to put things in a format, and in a style, that is strongly aimed at those who will be reading it, and having a deep reservoir of technical proficiency from which to draw so as to phrase things sharply and vigorously.
And write, write, write. William Zinser once used an illustration about an exchange between a writer and a brain surgeon where, in response to the surgeon's casual reference to doing "a little writing on the side," the writer gave as a riposte the thought that he would do a "little brain surgery on the side" as well. The point: we all think we can write because we all do it, but quality writing comes only through hard work, severe discipline, careful thought, and lots of practice - just like brain surgery.
When I'm writing an essay, I generally do the following:
* Research a lot of stuff on it, including things that seem orthogonal or at best tangential. Interview people, chase down primary sources, etc. Keep an eye out for surprises (in the Paul Graham sense [1]): new information that expands, challenges or outright debunks something I believe about the topic.
* Free-associate and try to tease out some dimensions along which the information can come together.
* Gradually settle on a thesis that's strongly enough supported by the evidence for the type of writing I'm doing.
* Get a good night's sleep. (Crucial step - do not skip!)
* Write a draft in the morning when my mind is fresh and the system of supporting arguments and information is still present. This may take one or more mornings depending on the length of the paper.
* Edit and format the draft, insert references, etc. Then set the paper aside and do something else.
* A day later or so, edit the draft again to cut out the fat, streamline the structure, fix spelling and grammatical errors, and so on.
* If it's intended for publication somewhere, give it to a friend to review.
* Make final edits and then submit.
Obviously, the size and complexity of this exercise depends on how big the subject is and how long the essay is going to be.
I read a study of classical piano students. The best ones, who were expected to become pros, all practiced in the morning; and there was some practice at other hours -- the same pattern, as far as I can remember. The good but less elite students also tended to work in the morning, but with more variance and less total practice. (This was one of those studies about the 10,000-hour rule and deliberate practice -- I think there were some refs to studies of other fields showing similar practices.)
Everyone needs to find what works best for themselves, but I'm pretty sure now I was just being macho when I thought I did best at night.
Actually the article showed ALL the writers wrote in the morning (well the 9 of 10 that mentioned when they wrote). It also said that many of them could/would write at other times as well but they ALL started in the morning.
In any event, to become a good writer you have to a) write a lot and b) read a lot (not necessarily in that order). Some of the books listed at the link will help get you started.
Ok, as a full-time software developer, single guy, part-time student and aspiring fiction writer I can talk about what works for me.
I have two usable slots for writing: get up early and write before work or write late at night. I'm really not a morning person so in the morning I just do half an hour immediately after I wake.
In the evening I have roughly 7pm - 11:30pm to play with. I normally sit down to write between 9pm and 10pm and then go through till 11 - 11:30. I don't think this is really enough and I'm looking at how I can get another hour or so a day from somewhere.
The most important thing is to set a regular time and stick to it. Certainly, for fiction anyway, making this time as close to sleep as possible seems to help.
For me, my best writing happens when I've procrastinated away the day and I'm on the verge of falling asleep and I'm fighting tiredness as I write. I've tried so many other ways but that's the most conducive environment to get me into flow.
Unfortunately, this means that half the time, I end up falling asleep before I get into that zone.
More specifically how 10 professional writers write.
Note some the advice is so general as to be useless. Plenty of professional writers write at night. Plenty of professional writers write in public spaces (just about almost any newspaper writer, for a start).
The observations made are interesting but don't really fall under "advice" any more than copying the writers' bowel or eating habits would.
For me, design is the same way. When I need to design something from scratch, or look at a current web design from a different angle, I like to be isolated and full of coffee (or red wine) -- free of distractions.
For coding, on the other hand, I don't really mind distractions.
It's this mindset that leads people to start thinking things like: "If only I had a cabin in the woods somewhere with a nice espresso machine, I could really do this right."
I once had to write a first draft of a full-length screenplay (160+ pages) for a screenwriting class I took for fun. Our professor made it clear that we shouldn't worry about our scripts sucking because he was 100% sure that they would.
Once you accept that your art will suck in its early drafts/stages, you can focus on cooking out ideas/material to start improving upon. This will be so easy that you will want pen and paper, recording equipment, camera, etc. with you all the time.