Routine, rhythms and resistance

Lots of writers have a daily writing goal and associated habits. Philip Pullman has his own, and my all time writing hero (and the famous man I most want to meet in the world) Ray Bradbury has one too. So does Stephen King, and many, many others.

I've always avoided it. After so many failed attempts to keep a diary in my youth, I put that kind of thing into the "awful daily chore that you create to make yourself feel guilty for failing" box and went and did my own thing.

For a while I wrote haphazardly, especially when I was coming out of my ten-year long writers block. I did the whole morning pages thing as part of that recovery, but in terms of fiction there was no routine at all.

After years in the desert, I found a spring

I wanted to write 20 Years Later for years but couldn't find the way into the story. Then one I day I literally woke up with a man's voice speaking in my head. I ran down the stairs, switched on the laptop and wrote what he was saying. It was the prologue and has remained practically unchanged since.

After that I couldn't stop writing the book. I finished the first draft 26 days later. It was an orgy of writing. Sheer bliss… a bliss that I never thought I'd experience again.

And I didn't for several years. Then I started blogging and stumbled into a new routine of writing a flash serial every Tuesday and a stand alone flash on Fridays. I wrote a short story a month too. All good.

The accidental routine was making lots of stories, but no novels

Book two simply wasn't getting written. And as the publication of book one was getting ever closer, I realised that I had to find a new routine and fast.

So I decided to try the whole 1000 words a day thing. But it made me realise something that I hadn't even considered before.

A daily word goal has nothing to do with the number of words, or even the daily aspect – it has everything to do with prioritisation.

This all happened at a point when I was really struggling with some anxiety issues. I took a long look at my trigger behaviours, at what made me feel calm and happy, and decided to experiment with how I organise my day.

A while ago I made a conscious decision to not build up my copywriting business and make writing my primary career path, with my business ticking over to pay the bills. But I realised that decision hadn't filtered down to all parts of my brain. On a global level I had said writing comes first, but on a daily activity level no change had been made.

I put that 1000 words goal at the top of my daily to do list. And do you know what happened? I wrote more. The book was getting written. Then I couldn't stop at 1000 words, I had to keep writing until the book let me go. One day I wrote over 5000 words. But not only that, I was feeling happier, more alive and the anxiety loosened its grip.

Why? Because I was putting the best of myself into the writing, and that nourishes me more than anything else in the world.

And funnily enough, all the client work is still getting done on time. The writing I do for them doesn't need as much of me as the writing of a novel does. I've been doing that kind of technical SEO writing for so many years now that I can do it when I'm a little bit tired, or after a few thousand words elsewhere. But that doesn't work the other way round, so when I tried to cram novel writing after client work there was nothing left.

Then the routine was broken

I went abroad for a week, which amounted to two weeks of client work crammed into the week before we went away, then extra work when I got back (I write monthly content you see, so only so much could be written ahead of time). I had so much work I had to prioritise the clients (they pay the bills after all) and so the fiction writing fell by the wayside.

I tried to write abroad, but it was on a strange laptop in different software, the chair was uncomfortable and well, I realised that I don't cope well with changes in my writing routine!

I got grumpy. Less got written. But even worse, I lost my rhythm, and when that happened, an old friend came back to squat in the empty space: anxiety.

I've spent the last 10 days clawing my way back to my old routine, and once I got there, I found I was blocked. That writer's anxiety had crept back. And something else was holding its clammy hand; resistance.

On Saturday I had cleared time to write, but didn't. I was only 5,000 words or so off finishing the first draft of book 2 and I was simply paralysed. So I took the day off. Then I did the same on Sunday. By Monday, I knew I had to address it.

Resisting the inevitable…

I knew it was probably a fear of finishing. Honestly, sometimes I wonder how I get through the day as I seem to be scared of everything. Fear of finishing? A first draft? Oh get a grip!

But it was scary (and still is a tiny bit) because it means the end of this current love affair. It means I have to go into the next project without knowing the shape of it yet. It means that the only time I'll ever spend with book two again is in the Land of Editing. And as we all know, there are no cocktails there.

I'm older and uglier than I was when I wrote the first book though, so I found a way through. Yeah, part of it was fear, but there was also something wrong with the next scene. Having a little flap at my husband about it and then a cup of tea enabled me to step back, finally realise what that was and then write the new version.

All was well with the world.

I'm now in the middle of the final chapter. Yes I am scared, in that "oh good grief Emma you're scared of everything!" kind of way, but I'm still writing. And look over there on the right! Look at how close I am to that final goal.

Rhythm, routine and resistance… all seductive in their own way. The only thing that's real is the need to write. Every day.