Adapting Writing Routines
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
It’s kind of interesting when you’ve been blogging as long as I have. Recently, I looked back over some of the posts from 2009 and 2010. My writing routine was very different back then and definitely something that was a work in progress. My guest post on Kaye Barley’s Meanderings and Muses blog explains how best to entertain children and get writing done (hint: bring their friends along).
In fact, many of my posts involved writing on the go. I learned to be very flexible with when and where I wrote…the whole point was to meet my goals however I could manage it.
It was, honestly, a crazy time. I was under contract for a couple of different series to Penguin and working on a 3rd for myself. My day, however, was very structured around my children’s activities and school days. I fit my writing around my children and it worked out really well.
Now my ‘children’ are 21 and 17. My son is away at college and my daughter soon will be. Even with one bird still in the nest, my daughter is rarely here. She no longer needs rides anywhere and her school schedule this year involves a dual-enrollment program (part of her day at high school, part of her day at a local college).
My kids’ schedules provided the framework of my writing day. Structure was forced on me by carpool times for both school (two different schools because of the age difference of my children) and for various afterschool sports, clubs, etc.
When you choose your own schedule, you can be spoiled for choice. This is definitely the case for those of us going through empty nest syndrome, and I’m imagining it’s the same for those of us who have recently retired.
Can you have too much time to write? I think that can be a problem, for sure. Before, I had to be extremely focused and protective of my writing time and was sure to squeeze it into any available free spot in my day. Ultimately, this trained me to be very productive. I wrote in carpool lines and while waiting for my children to come out of Scouts or cheer practice.
I realized about a year ago that I needed to rethink how I approached my writing day. Here are my tips for rethinking a routine:
Evaluate what still works. I kept some elements that always worked really well for me. I knew that I always feel better when I am up earlier than anyone else and can knock out most, if not all, of my goal then. This still worked for me, so I kept it.
Reassess word count goals and goals per session. Are you still hitting your goals? Should you make your first writing session longer instead of trying to jumpstart the process again later in the day? For me, this was the answer (or most of it). While I was still somewhat in the writing zone, it made sense for me to lengthen my first session of the day.
Consider when best to add another writing session. When are you most productive? For me, I realized another short session in the morning would work best. I write at 5 a.m. for the first session so I definitely wasn’t feeling burned out at 10 a.m., hours later. But that’s still a time when I have a lot of energy.
Evaluate the new routine. Are you making more progress? Or should you make some tweaks to the new routine and reassess?
For further reading:
Has Your Writing Routine Become a Writing Rut? by Suzannah Windsor Freeman. This article involves a routine that’s been broken up by a baby.
5 Signs You Need to Break Up Your Writing Routine by Colleen M. Story. Indicators that we need to consider adapting our routines.
7 Useful Tips for Establishing a Writing Routine by Claire Bradshaw. Great advice for anyone trying to start a routine or change one.
Do you have a writing routine? If so, is it different now from the way it used to be? Was it hard to adapt?
Adapting Writing Routines:
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Photo credit: Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton on Visual hunt / CC BY-NC-ND
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