The Writing Habit

If you want to be a productive writer, then you need a habit.

Not this kind of habit:

THIS kind of  habit:

Yeah, I know, we writers are creative people. We like to have muses and write when we’re inspired. We want all of the rainbows and unicorns and leprechaun gold while we’re at it. Habits are boring and stifling and structured, for God’s sake. We get enough structure from our day jobs and our family responsibilities. Writing should be spontaneous and fun and happen when we’re really feeling the love.

This is all true UNLESS you want to write professionally. Because here’s the fly in the ointment, my friends. If you want to be published – and continue to be published – then writing becomes a J-O-B.

Yep. I said it. Writing professionally is a full on responsibility.

Sure, it’s still fun – some of the time.

Magic still happens – some of the time.

The Muse still sings songs of enchantment and wonder that get you lost in Storyland – some of the time.

But that isn’t going to cut it if you’re trying to build a career. Your capricious Muse won’t help you meet deadlines, and neither will fitful inspiration. There will be days when writing feels like the last thing on  the face of the planet that you want to be doing. There will be days when it feels hopeless, pointless, and maybe even stupid. This happens to every writer, even, I dare say, to those who are highly successful and appear to have “made it.”

You have to find a way to write anyway.

I am going to offer a caveat here. Yes, there are days when “writing” means thinking. There are days when the best thing you can do is step away from a manuscript and take a walk, do some brainstorming, or talk to a friend. Some writers take regular, planned days off from writing, in order to rest and refresh. This advice is for writers who are struggling with getting the writing done.

I’ve talked in previous posts about setting priorities and finding your focus. These things are hard.  I’m not sure what Life has against writing, but I can tell you that Life does not want you to write. It will throw things at you overhand, underhand, and sideways. It will screw you over six ways from Sunday. If you wait for those wonderful, golden moments of sheer writing bliss to be handed to you on a silver platter, you’re going to be waiting until you’re in the ground and fodder for the worms.

Ever notice how you don’t have to carve out time for your habits? If you’re a morning coffee drinker, you don’t have to think about that in the morning. Imagine if, when the alarm went off and you managed to drag yourself into the kitchen, you spent fifteen minutes debating about whether or not to make coffee.

God forbid. That would be one question too many in your decaffeinated state. Nope. Before your eyes are open, you’re fumbling through your morning coffee ritual. Maybe you were really smart and loaded the coffee pot the night before.

Everything in your morning routine – from taking a shower and brushing your teeth to getting dressed – happens pretty much on auto pilot. These things are habits (at least for most of us.) We do them every day, whether we feel like it or not.

A writing habit serves the same purpose. If you have made it a habit, when your allotted writing time comes up, you write.

You write whether you feel the writing love or not.

You write whether you’re brimming with inspiration or feeling jaded and tired and beset by doubt.

Writers write. Regularly.

Some of you are going to tell me that your days are too unpredictable or that you don’t have time. If this is true, chances are it’s time to rethink your priorities. If you REALLY WANT TO WRITE then you will find a time to fit writing regularly into your life. But I will also tell you that something else that you love may need to go, because we don’t get anything for free.

Even when you’ve developed the habit, there will be days where writing doesn’t happen. There are probably days when you don’t get dressed or brush your teeth, and maybe – gods forfend – days when you don’t drink coffee. Life is like that. But the thing about habits is that once they’re established, they are hard to break. So if you have a Writing Habit and you miss a day, you’ll find your way back to it the next day, or the next.

When you don’t write, you’ll feel that something is missing, just like when you forget to brush your teeth. Words will get written.

Chances are, once you establish it, this is one habit you’ll never want to break.

I’ll be teaching a class on getting writing done at Colorado Gold 2016 called Write Now: Making Space for Writing in a Busy World. It’s scheduled for 8 am on Sunday, which is either appropriate or ironic, or maybe both.