Establishing a Daily Writing Routine

I don’t know about you, but for me the only way to get anything written is to work to a very strict routine. If I only write when I feel like I have the energy or, worse yet, the inspiration, I will almost certainly never write. Not only am I unlikely to ever write, but in whenever I do write, I will give up almost straight away because I ‘just wasn’t getting into The Zone today.’

Dear reader, I am not for one second refuting the value of getting into the so-called Zone. There’s nothing quite like that feeling of easily knocking out a couple of thousand really good words words in less than an hour. But for most mortals, that doesn’t really happen every day and that’s why we need to do something about it.

The answer lies, at least partly, in establishing a strong writing routine. By that I mean having both a long-term routine (that is, your regular established writing times) and a short-term one (how do you make the best use of your time each session). I’m not going to harp on too much about the importance of having a long-term routine since I’m pretty sure I’ve already written about it several times. Instead lets talk about what we do when we actually sit down to write.

I often find it tempting to cold start each writing session, especially since I have so very little writing time available between juggling a full time job and a three year old daughter (not to mention this blog) but nine times out of ten, I find cold starting is the single biggest mistake you can make. If you’re coming to your novel tired, uninspired and distracted by other things, you’re not going to suddenly knock out a work of genius in a single hour session. You’ll just end up faffing. You might even catch yourself visiting some of my favourite websites for procrastination (I recommend the Monkey Island sword-fighting game). So even if you find time is short, I would strongly recommend starting off each session with a pre-writing technique.

There are quite a few of these you could try, though free writing is one I find particularly effective (I’ve written about that too!). Try free writing, even just for five or ten minutes about whatever comes to mind, or better yet, free write about your story, even if all you can think to write is ‘I have no idea what I’m doing with this story,’ over and over. You don’t necessarily have to come up with new ideas for your story (although if you do, great). This is just a technique for getting you focused on what you’re about to do, so you could use it to rave about how wonderful your book is going to be or you could write a little story about your antagonist buying his groceries or you could write down your own feelings about writing. It doesn’t matter. The most important thing is that you write, without stopping, about whatever comes to mind. Trust me, it’ll get your juices flowing.

Once you’ve done your pre-writing, it’s time to start work properly. Again, your time is precious. Don’t waste it by just opening up your project and waiting for something to happen. Go to work with a clear and specific goal for this session. If you’re well into the drafting stage, this could be as simple as establishing how many words you have to write in that session, or if you’re still at the planning stage you might decide that you need to complete a chapter outline. Whatever your goal, make sure it is crystal clear in your mind so you aren’t distracted by anything else (such as editing chapter 1 when you should be drafting chapter 2) and also make sure your goal is realistic. If you’ve only got one hour to write, don’t ask yourself to write 100,000 words. You will fail and become despondent. Be realistic about what you can accomplish- then accomplish it.

When you’ve accomplished your goal for the day, allow yourself to save your work and go grab a nice cold drink and put your feet up. It is often tempting to write ourselves into oblivion, until we completely dry up and become despondent because we’ve wasted the last three hours of our day trying to keep up the momentum we established early on in the day. But that is not necessary or helpful. If you have accomplished your daily goal, turn off your computer, feel good about what you’ve accomplished and enjoy the rest of your life. You won’t feel like a failure then because you are establishing and meeting your writing goals every day– and before long, you’ll be holding a completed novel in your hands.

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AUTHOR INTERVIEWS:

Due to a recent surge in interest, I am presently committed to a significant number of reviews/interviews over the next couple of months. If you would like an interview or review, I would still love to hear from you, though it is unlikely that I will be able to begin work immediately.

You can check out our previous interviews here:

• Sharleen Nelson, author of The Time Tourists [2]
• D. Wallace Peach, author of the Shattered Sea duology [2]
• Jacob Klop, author of Crooked Souls
• H.L. Walsh, author of From Men and Angels [2]
• G.M. Nair, author of Duckett and Dyer: Dicks for Hire
• Georgia Springate, author of Beyond
• S.E. Morgan, author of From Waterloo to Water Street
• Megan Pighetti, author of Fairy-Tailed Wish [2]
• Nancet Marques, author of Chino and the Boy Scouts [VIDEO]