Make time for it, and only it. And above all else, don’t trust yourself.
A writer should always be the first person to wake up and work, that’s the only way anyone will take you seriously. That’s the only way you’ll take yourself, seriously. Remind yourself that you want to be— no, are a writer, a person who writes words; but don’t trust your moods or your loves of them. They, moods and loves, though wonderful, wax and wane to and fro, and those grounds aren’t stable enough to build anything on. Keep a strict schedule of an austere mindset that’s, at minimum; three parts self-chastisement, four parts unavoidable, and five parts very very simple. Ridicule yourself for not putting pen to papers or fingers to board. To paraphrase poet Ilya Kaminsky, “A blank page is the white flag of your surrender.” Only cowards surrender, and the last thing you want to be is a coward.
I’ve set things up so that the first things that open up as I login around 5AM are a blank page and the day’s schedule, and after that I remind myself of what I want and don’t want to be.