I only need two hours a day for writing. (The rest of the time is for thinking, thinking, thinking about the story).

I write for an hour at lunch, then another hour or two after work if I can.

Then at weekends I usually get up and go to a coffee shop for two hours. You can easily grab 12 hours a week this way and end up with a pretty serious script in two months.

The only thing missing is a big block of time to go through the entire script from start to finish, to proofread and make edits on the script as a whole. That needs a whole weekend away from everything distracting.

Not easy, but doable.

Yes, indeed! This is so true: http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/2011/4/24/be-ruthless-about-protecting-writing-days.html

You have to be ruthless about protecting your writing time. Whether it's ten minutes at a time - which is usually what I can grab - or hours, the key is making sure that time is inviolable.

It's almost like making a deal with your subconscious, in a way: if you can keep the promise to yourself to write without interruption for that amount of time, you WILL produce quality. It works well!

If you don't have a lot of time - and paradoxically, if you DO have a lot of time - any tips I have are from THE COFFEE BREAK SCREENWRITER by Pilar Allessandra. It literally breaks the whole screenwriting process down into ten-minute chunks - but you could easily "cheat" and expand them into 30-minute or hour-long chunks. Perfect for when I have downtime at my job.

It also helps when I have a surplus of time - then, I've got the time but I frequently don't know where to start or what to work on. I think Alfonso Cuaron once likened the process of making a film to eating an elephant - "You have to do it one teaspoon at a time." THE COFFEE BREAK SCREENWRITER does this and gets me into action when I can't see how to break my project down into teaspoons.

I like this topic.

I finished a spec and really wanted to focus on getting as many eyes on the thing as I could.

Before I knew it a month had passed and I was still pounding out query letters and forgot one important thing...

To work on the next project!!

Time to get organized... and it's time to start...

NOW!

Thanks Scott!

Thank you. the bottom line seems to be simple self discipline (as if that's ever simple).

I've been getting up early and writing for an hour before getting ready for work. I'd much prefer to be a night owl, but my schedule just doesn't allow it.

For me, the biggest take away is don't even go near email before getting that time in.

Thank you again.

@Tom and everyone else: If you want a poster child for self-discipline to become a screenwriter, Google "Ron Bass novels middle of the night" or something like that. While being a full-time entertainment lawyer, Ron Bass would wake up at like 3:30AM and write for several hours before going into work. I believe he wrote 3, perhaps even 4 novels before finally either quitting to become a screenwriter or selling a script then quitting. If somebody can Google those details and copy/paste here, great. But I know the general elements of Bass' story are true.