Amy Spalding is a bestselling author and freelance book editor. She is a recipient of the 2023 Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award for the authentic, funny, and diverse representation of the LGBTQ+ community in her books. Her romance novels include For Her Consideration, At Her Service, On Her Terms, and the upcoming In Her Spotlight (2026). Her young adult novels include the bestselling We Used to Be Friends, and The Summer of Jordi Perez, which was selected as a best book of 2018 by NPR, the Boston Globe, Buzzfeed, and more. 

I know that I’m not alone amongst writers when I say that the thing I’m desperate for is more time. While I can’t make a New Years resolution to gain the ability to control time (if only!), I have thought a lot lately about how I allot my time and how I can do better.

There is a lot going on in my life, as I know there is for all of us. I have a dayjob, personal obligations, side gigs, and of course the need to try to cram in fun when I can, too. My entire life is maintained via an intricate system of Outlook and Google calendars, and as long as I remember to drop everything into one of them, I show up where I’m supposed to and almost never double-book myself. For a person diagnosed with ADHD, this feels like a huge win!

The writing somehow also always gets done, or at least I should say that the books always get finished, somehow. Over the years of balancing all of this, I’ve gotten great at carving out little pieces of time, writing during lunch breaks or the few minutes in between getting home and taking the dog out for a walk. In some ways I thrive on this method; the work happens and my productivity feels maximized!

The truth is, though, that I spend a lot of time stressed out. Some of this is natural; these unprecedented historic times are enough to leave me feeling weighted down with a mild touch of existential dread on the best of days. Sometimes the urgency of tasks in my non-writing gigs are heightened enough that a little stress absolutely makes sense. Recently, though, I stared down my calendar with plans and other responsibilities spanning across just about every day of the week and thought, you know, things don’t have to be this way!

Look, despite the stereotypes about writers, I am an extrovert. I love leaving my home. I often prefer talking about books to, like, writing books. Nothing against writing! My biggest creative satisfactions have all come from simply sitting down and doing the work, whether it be a surprising character discovery during a first draft or the way it feels to connect all the pieces of an outline or the aha! moments in a revision slotting into place. Still, though, these things can be difficult, and they can be lonely. It’s no wonder when making plans that I eagerly slot dinners and movies and parties into the blank spaces in my calendar. After all, writing always gets finished in the blank spaces. It’s fine!

Lately, though, I’ve been wondering about what my life would look like if I started actually filling up those blank spaces with my own work instead. After all, just because I can fit the work in, if I’m living life in survival mode due almost entirely to the schedule that is within my own control, doesn’t mean I have to do it this way.

I’ll be honest; I don’t know what this is going to look like! Will I literally input “writing” into my calendar like it’s dinner plans?… and if I do, will I actually keep that night open? Even if someone invites me to something that is objectively more fun than, you know, working? I genuinely hope it’s that simple, though I know myself well enough to understand it probably won’t be. Still, I think about everything I’ve learned in therapy, about how doing things enough times in a row because they’re good for you and not necessarily because you’re a hundred percent on board or, well, at least trying to do this may absolutely open the door to actually nailing it at some point.

When I was young and unpublished, when my life was less full and my calendar less in need of its own management strategy, I remember rushing home from my day job to pull up my manuscript and get right to work. Two decades later, it’s hard to remember how simple this once was. But I like the idea of pushing to get back to basics, to remembering how much I really do love the work itself, and how—even if the initial work is solitary—the act of writing is full of the possibilities of connection and community.

I am incredibly bad at talking about any of this, too, fitting into the Gen X stereotype of preferring to drench everything in a layer of detached irony than risk being too earnest about what I love, what moves me, what work I want to do on myself this coming year. So a smaller part of this resolution to center my own work more within my own life is also letting go, at least a little, of the tight grip this has over me. A little outward genuine emotion and self-care never hurt anyone, right? In 2026, I hope to find out.

In Her Spotlight by Amy Spalding

Hollywood star Tess Gardner longs to be taken seriously beyond her blockbuster superhero role and finally gets her chance in the theater—only to be reunited with Rebecca Frisch, the director whose heart she broke years ago. As old feelings resurface and the pressures of fame and secrecy collide, Tess must decide whether to keep hiding behind her A-list image or risk everything to claim both her truth and her happiness.

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