How to Make Your Writing Ritual Successful

After being laid off from my job due to Covid-19, I’ve had a struggle like thousands of other Americans. Even though, I had a small savings to carry me for a while, and I appreciated the unemployment checks while they lasted, I’m facing some serious financial decisions for my future well-being.

After thinking through my various options, working from home seems like the best choice to me. It’s a shift that mainly takes some soul searching to manage my schedule and stay on task and avoid distractions.

My New Year’s Resolution

For years, I’ve made my new year’s resolution to lose weight, make more money, pay off debt and countless other promises. But after about 30 days, I didn’t stick to any one of them. Yes, they were written down on a planner book and yes I looked at my goals and objectives….but…still…no end results that I’m proud of.

So, about 3 years ago I read about the 3 power words from Chris Brogan that I started using. Focus, Write, Calm are my new words for 2021. I stick these words in places that force me to read them several times a day. This strategy works better for me than writing out New Year’s Resolutions. It may work for you too.

My Daily Ritual

Currently, I’m reading a book written by Mason Curry called; “Daily Rituals”. He compiled a list of over 100 artists and discusses ways how artists work. I’ve always been curious how others who like to write manage their time. To my surprise no two artists think alike. They all seem to have a steadfast ritual created to fit their personality type.

For example, Mayo Angelou liked to write in a rented motel room for 3 days at a time. She wrote with pen and paper and had no distractions, no phone, no room service and no noise of any kind.

Benjamin Franklin believed in virtue of order…He set himself a daily time table to accomplish his goals.

Leo Tolstoy 1828–1910 wrote; “ I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine.”

So, after reading about other successful artist’s methods, I got inspired to create my own style. It goes like this:

I get up at 6 am and start my day my taking care of my personal needs like waking up, taking my medication, let my dogs go outside and basically coming alive and coherent. Since I’m a morning person, it’s not difficult for me to wake up early. I’ve discovered my most productive time of day is early morning before noon.

However, the hardest part is avoiding distractions. I don’t have a problem with Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest or any of those, but some times my distractions are family members. But I try to work around distractions and if I get out of my flow of writing, then maybe I will walk away and do something physical like cooking, sewing or some other craft. Doing these things seem to help me calm down and relax, which makes it easier for me to go back to my writing project and do it again.

Don’t you think we as writers have to find our own path? Evidently, most all writers have a ritual of some kind to be writing consistently. Otherwise, if you wrote at random, then life would get in your way with daily distractions and your work would never get completed.

What is Your Writing Method?

I’m old school. I like writing with a yellow pad and my favorite pen with white noise in the background. I like having a box fan going, because it soothes my psyche and I can focus better.

But I find it time consuming to write out my story on paper and then start typing it on Vocal. So, I decided to type directly here today, edit and publish all within a 2 hour span of time. I hope something clicks with me and I will write like this daily…only for 2 hours or less…so that I can form a comfortable habit and write daily no matter what.

Now there are a lot of duties to be taken care of if you want to make a living with your writing skills. You make need to have your personal website, an email list, a following and maybe you want to write on more than one platform. It’s a lot of work. It takes management, getting your ducks in a row.

Habits are the Invisible Architecture

Keep at it, even when it’s uncomfortable and you’d rather quit!

Recently, I learned you may need to embed a podcast or video in your post for better engagement.

Why Not Put In the Required Work in 2021?

The world and the Internet is changing drastically. We have to be life-long learners if we want to keep up. It’s still difficult to keep up and keep your calm about you. Keeping it as simple as possible is the best strategy in my opinion.

Simple is not always easy these days. Too much technology can be harmful to your health and not knowing how to use technology can leave you behind. So, I’ve chosen a few tools that I hopefully can master and use with ease, so I can focus on my writing. Notion is my new self-management tool, if only I could be consistent with it.

Let’s not forget about reading. Reading can be done during your down time. Finding a comfortable spot and reading only 2 or 3 posts a day with commenting will take you far on the Vocal platform. Planning, implementing your plan is what hard work is all about. I wish Alexa would read Vocal posts to me. I might like that.

Take Away

Find your writing ritual. Work on your own terms, what works for me may not work for you. If I can do it…doesn’t necessarily mean that you can do it. No matter how simple it my sound.

Just do it! Read, write, highlight, comment, follow and get in the flow.

Thanks for reading.