How Does Planning Time fit into Writing Time?

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering how you fit in time to plan/plot your books.  The conventional wisdom is that you should be writing every day.  By writing, should that be actual time spent putting words to the page?  Or does that also include sitting and planning everything out?  How do you look at writing time?

Thanks!

Thinking, planning, plotting, outlining, I believe all to be part of the wrting process.

Maggi's right; all of the planning is certainly part of "writing," but it is possible to overplan a project. Especially when you're starting out, you can spend all your time doing research and never get around to the actual task at hand. Avoid both extremes (writing without a plan, planning/research as procrastination) when working on a project.

For me as a nonfiction writer, nearly all my planning takes place at the beginning of the project. Thinking out the table of contents (an essential part of a nonfiction book proposal) is where I figure out what I'm writing about. Recognize that all structures change while you're writing--that's why it's important to do both!

I agree with Maggi, think back to when you were at school, how often did your teacher tell you before writing an essay or composition, make your plan so you have a clear idea ofwhat you are going to say. It is all part of the exercise and there is lots of software today to help you with that exercise, WriteItNow, Movie Outline, SpaceJock,Ywriter, New Novelist, the list is endless, trawl the internet and you will be surprised.

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.
— E. L. Doctorow

He's right.  Even if you do have to spend time doing these things, none of them are writing, and if you let them take away from writing time, you're dead in the water.  If you can't spend time writing whatever project it is your spending time doing these things for, then spend actual writing time on something else.  But spend time actually writing as close to every last day as possible, or none of thes ethings will help.