“Write every day,” they say. But who the hell are they, anyway?
They don’t always know what they’re talking about, because they don’t know you. Instead of listening to them, why not create a writing practice that fits your schedule and your life?
I spent 2019 doing just that. It wasn’t easy, especially at first. But by the end of the year, I’d written two books. TWO BOOKS! This in addition to writing blog posts and running my online writing community The Workshop.
Read on to learn what I did and how you can create a productive writing practice of your own that fits into your life and schedule.
Three steps to building your writing practice.
Creating a consistent writing practice was a process of trial and error. I tried something to see how it worked Then I evaluated, tweaked, and tried again. Through this process, I learned three very important things.
- Choose your writing days and times according to what works for YOUR schedule.
- Create a system to hold yourself accountable.
- Patience is your best friend.
1. Choose times according to what works for YOU!
In January 2019, I set aside Monday and Friday of each week for writing. I worked on everything else the other three weekdays. It felt strange. How could I possibly finish all the rest of my work in just three days?
My other challenge? Would I actually sit and write two full days a week?
At first, I didn’t accomplish either goal. My first month of this schedule stressed me out. I couldn’t complete my work in just three days, and my long list of Other Work tasks spilled into Mondays and Fridays, eclipsing my writing time.
“Just this one small thing,” I’d tell myself. “Then I’ll write.” But one short e-mail would blossom into hours, and by lunch, I was too distracted to get back to writing.
Some days, I’d shut my computer, promising myself to try again later. Sometimes I did try again. I’d open my document in the afternoon and peck away here and there.
Did I write? Yes, but not much.
It was messy and half-assed. There was no way I could finish a book writing that way. I needed something better. But what? I examined my habits to see what wasn’t working and find ways to make it work for me.
Adjust your writing schedule to fit your needs
First, I considered changing my writing days. What would happen if I wrote every morning and leaving afternoons for everything else? It didn’t work. Half a day doesn’t give me enough time to finish a solid block of writing or dive deeply enough into my other projects.
Turns out, the reason my Monday/Friday conundrum had a much simpler solution. I wasn’t actually writing during my writing time. Sounds simple, right? But it’s amazing how easy it is to fool yourself. I did it. I’ve seen plenty of others do the same.
If you want to use your time well, you needed to 1. Create clear boundaries and 2. Develop better working habits.
My boundaries. I recommitted to ONLY WRITING during my writing days. No distractions. No exceptions. I reinforced this habit by closing everything else on my computer before shutting down the night before, and in the morning, I opened only the documents and tools I needed to write.
What happened when I sat down to write my shitty first draft?
It went slowly. I felt blocked and picked at the keyboard. I didn’t write for eight hours on my first day. Not even close. Nor the second. But by the second week, I’d developed a rhythm. I was writing for longer periods of time and took fewer breaks. It wasn’t fully comfortable, but my writing time produced pages.
By March, I saw two significant changes in the way I worked.
I developed a writing process that worked for me.
On Friday, I wrote rough chapters, almost free writing to get words on the page. Then on Monday, I went back to shape those pages. I added details and cleaned up sentence-level errors.
Giving myself a couple of days between writing and clean-up helped me see my writing with clearer eyes. Pages I hated one day seemed far more palatable after a break.
I never went back to edit, though. Instead, I chose to move forward so I could finish the draft.
I began to enjoy and even anticipate my writing time.
Imagine that! I actually felt excited to write! Not every writing day, but the tension and upset that usually visited me as I looked ahead at a day of writing turned into optimism. I began to feel like I had two extra days added to my weekend.
Things to consider as you set your schedule
Choose days and times that work for your schedule. You don’t have to write every day. You don’t even need to write for a full day. If half a day on a weekend or an hour twice a week before everyone else wakes up is all you have, then go for it. No amount of writing is too small or not worth it. Even if you only have just ten minutes, it’s enough. Work with what you have.
Be kind to yourself. “Writing begins with forgiveness,” says Daniel Jose Older in one of my favorite pieces discussing why you don’t have to write every day.
Stick with your writing schedule for at least three months. You may find yourself easing smoothly into your new writing schedule. If so, wonderful. More likely, though, you’ll run into glitches. Glitches are uncomfortable, but they don’t necessarily mean you’re writing time isn’t right. If after three months, it’s still not working, then consider choosing different times. Make your changes and test them to see how they work.
Keep going. The writing process doesn’t run smoothly. You’ll have times that flow, but many times you’ll feel lost. Consistency is key to creating a writing practice. Keep going, even during days that feel stressful or unproductive.
Create a work area that facilitates concentration and mitigates interruptions. Is your desk comfortable? Does your chair support your body properly? Is your workspace comfortable and quiet? You may need to go to a cafe or rent an office. You may need to install a lock on your door.
Let nothing interrupt your time. This is the hard part because you’re creative. If you’re like most creatives, you will find countless reasons to walk away and do something else. You will feel pressure to put other things first. You may feel your writing is a luxury and you have to do something else first. This is your time to write, so write. No excuses.
Ask the people in your life to leave you alone while you work. This is easier said than done. Our families, even when they love us, don’t always understand that writing time is sacred. They’ll want to ask you “just one question” or any other number of things. Once you carve out space for your writing, protect it like nothing else. You must at the very least give yourself a fighting chance by giving yourself a time and place to write.
2. Bake accountability into your writing practice
After three months of my new writing schedule, I produced pages, but I wasn’t making the best use of my time. I checked e-mail and Twitter whenever I got stuck. I got up and walked around. I drank ten thousand cups of tea, looked out the window, played with the cats, and many other quick interruptions that broke the writing flow.
Imagine how much I could accomplish without constant distraction?
A study from the American Society of Training and Development found that when you inject accountability into your work process, you raise your chances of reaching your goals by 95%. I couldn’t ignore such an incredible statistic.
How I held myself accountable to my writing practice
I asked a friend to form an accountability group with me. We had pages due every week on Tuesday. By Thursday, I’d get feedback on my pages, and then Friday morning I’d edit based on the feedback. The weekly deadline applied the gentle pressure I needed to focus and eliminate distractions.
At first, I eked out a few pages a week, but the more I wrote, the easier it became. Skip forward to May, and my writing flowed more easily. I fell into a comfortable rhythm.
Even when I got stuck and nothing seemed to work, having a regular schedule helped me stay patient. I followed my schedule, trying one thing after another to find a solution. Finally, I broke through my block.
By September, I was 85% through a solid third draft of the book and by October I had powered through 40+ pages a week to complete a full clean draft by the end of the month.
Then I took a needed break from my novel before starting revisions— the fifth step in the 8-step process to write a book.
Testing my writing practice with a second book
When November rolled around, I decided to tackle National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo.
I’d been mulling over an idea for a book called The Rejection Handbook. It’s been on my Backburner Projects list for years. The Rejection Handbook explores why rejection is so painful and how to overcome the fear of rejection to improve your work. It’s based on my own struggles as well as my experiences working with other writers.
When the first day of November rolled around, I jumped into my shitty first draft. I learned that the practice of sitting down to write regularly in spite of resistance, frustration, and blocks served me well as I sat down to tackle a new book. I wrote on the same writing days and incorporated a similar writing process.
Another method to stay accountable
For accountability, I started another group with two other friends who were also doing NaNoWriMo. Instead of sending pages and giving feedback each week, we messaged each other every day to check-in and find out whether or not we’d reached our word limit. We also shared our challenges and frustrations, giving each other advice and support to move through them.
When we reached our goals… we celebrated loudly and with many animated gifs and congratulations.
If not, we’d discuss our plans to catch up and how we’d continue writing. I looked forward to checking in each day, and the gentle competition to complete our goals pushed me to start writing earlier in the day and to write longer.
On days I didn’t reach my goals, I evaluated my methods then made a plan to catch up. It made the process exciting and fun.
I wrote the first draft in a month!
I would never have been able to complete a full draft of The Rejection Handbook in one month had I not spent the ten months practicing. I was able to write through the discomfort of not knowing what to say. I ignored those pesky feelings that no one would want to read my book. I kept writing until I completed a shitty first draft, incorporated research into the book, and even had enough time to start editing the first few chapters of the book.
3. Be patient with your process
You must be patient with yourself as you develop your own writing practice. You’re guaranteed to hit blocks. You’ll be frustrated at times. You’ll want to quit. You’ll think your writing is crap.
Instead of allowing those thoughts to take over, be patient and kind to yourself. Tweak your schedule and accountability as needed, but above all else, keep going. Don’t worry about creating massive change. Instead, push yourself forward one tiny change at a time.
James Clear describes the benefits of small action to reach big goals in his book Atomic Habits.
Too often we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. Whether it is losing weight, building a business, writing a book, winning a championship, or achieving any other goal, we put pressure on ourselves to make some earth-shattering improvement that everyone will talk about.
Meanwhile, improving by one percent isn’t particularly notable– sometimes it isn’t even noticeable– but it can be far more meaningful, especially in the long run. The difference a tiny improvement can make is astounding. Here’s how the math works out: if you can get one percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get one percent worse each day for a year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts out as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more.
I wrote two books in one year while I ran a business, mentored writers, and also made space for my life outside of work. I didn’t accomplish these things because I’m superhuman. They happened because I followed the steps above.
Your daily small wins, the things you may not even notice as they’re happening, will bloom into massive gains after you repeat them regularly over months and years.
Now it’s your turn to build your writing practice.
