Building A Writing Habit

The most common advice writers give is to stick to a regular writing routine, whether you feel like it or not. Like most advice, this is easier said than done. Maybe you can’t set up a regular routine, or maybe you had one and life threw a wrench at it. For me that wrench was a sudden unplanned move that left me struggling to rebuild a routine. Sometimes no matter how badly you want to write, you still just don’t feel like it. It took me a long time to get back, here a few tips that helped me.

1. Write first thing in the morning.

I’ve found it easier to commit to writing everyday if I make it the first thing I do. Working with Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way*, I started doing morning pages. I didn’t like them and if I didn’t start as soon as I got up, I wouldn’t do them. I was never sure how useful they really were to me, but it was an easy habit to keep up. Plans to write any other time of day usually fell victim to one excuse or another. I didn’t always stick to three pages, changing it to suit my needs at different times. It was more important to simply have writing as a part of morning routine. Eventually, I swapped them out for shorter journaling sessions and working more on creative projects I intended on publishing.

2. Lower your standards.

It’s easy to not write when you hold yourself to high standards. Whether it's setting goals like hours long writing sessions or a ridiculously high word counts, it turns into an excuse when you don’t feel like writing. It’s also discouraging when you’re not confident in what you’re writing. I felt like I was wasting my time if the writing wasn’t good enough to be published.

I had to set the bar lower. I stopped setting time-based goals and started building a routine with short writing exercises I didn’t plan on sharing. One very useful tool was the book Embrace Your Weird* by Felicia Day. The short creative exercises only took a couple of minutes and helped me enjoy writing without judging the work. I slowly started adding small daily goals. In July of 2020, I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo, setting a goal of 10,000 words, about 300 a day. I hit my goal in less than twenty minutes most days. Seeing the words add up helped shift my attitude. Even days I fell short, I was able to think it was still better than nothing.

3. Make commitments.

Just telling myself to sit down and write barely works when I want to write. Committing to an event where I have to write will get me writing no matter how I feel. It doesn’t even have to be a big commitment. Virtual write-ins held on YouTube are easy, low stress commitments that are available from a variety of organizations and writers. I know how intimidating it can be to attend live workshops, in person or online. These are less intimidating but still motivate you to show up and write. For me just setting the reminder to attend was enough.

For a while, I let the lack of a writing community in my area be an excuse. When got serious about my writing, I started a virtual writing group meeting via Skype. The pandemic highlighted and expanded online options. There are a wide variety of virtual writing workshops, book clubs, writing groups, classes and other events. There really are no more excuses anymore.

Write With Me

Since January 2022, I've Morning Write-Ins online using Zoom. We meet three days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9am-11am Eastern. You get a welcoming and supportive writing community along with focused and dedicated writing time.

*Affiliate links-I receive a small commission from purchases using links. **A version of this was originally published on the NaNoWriMo blog