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How I turned writing into a daily habit: A thread.
I talked a bit about writing habit here: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CDtd4kygMNT/ , and today I’m going to share with you more tips to turn writing into a daily habit. I can talk all day about this, but here's today's handy trick:
I talked a bit about writing habit here: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CDtd4kygMNT/ , and today I’m going to share with you more tips to turn writing into a daily habit. I can talk all day about this, but here's today's handy trick:
Make writing convenient, aka REMOVE ALL OBSTACLES!
We are lazy slackers. I'm sorry, but we are! It’s the reason companies like Amazon make purchasing things so freaking easy to do. They remove as many obstacles as possible to get us to purchase crap and we fall for it every time
We are lazy slackers. I'm sorry, but we are! It’s the reason companies like Amazon make purchasing things so freaking easy to do. They remove as many obstacles as possible to get us to purchase crap and we fall for it every time
So do the same with your writing. Make it easy for you to write. First, identify the obstacles that stand between you and actually getting yourself to write.
For myself, the obstacles are:
1. Kids. I feel terrible classifying my kids as an obstacle, lol. They're my little sweethearts, but when it comes to my writing, they are total obstacles!
1. Kids. I feel terrible classifying my kids as an obstacle, lol. They're my little sweethearts, but when it comes to my writing, they are total obstacles!
2. My day job. There is always some meeting or urgent task that's suddenly sprung on me.
3. Writing is hard. I'm writing my ELEVENTH book and it's still really freaking hard. The blank page is intimidating. It requires so much effort. It's like asking my brain to do burpees.
3. Writing is hard. I'm writing my ELEVENTH book and it's still really freaking hard. The blank page is intimidating. It requires so much effort. It's like asking my brain to do burpees.
(Burpees suck.)
Okay, so now that I have identified my obstacles, the next step is to come up with solutions.
1. Kids: I can either turn on the TV and let them watch Youtube, or try to get them to play with each other, or yeet them to grandma's (love you, Ma!)
Okay, so now that I have identified my obstacles, the next step is to come up with solutions.
1. Kids: I can either turn on the TV and let them watch Youtube, or try to get them to play with each other, or yeet them to grandma's (love you, Ma!)
OR! I can solve two obstacles--kids and day job--with a single solution: Write very early in the morning or very late at night. Either would work well, but I've also got obstacle 3, which is that writing is tough, and the later in the day I push it to, the more time I spend
in the day dreading it, the same way I dread exercising. So that means writing at night is out of the question, because I don't want to spend most of my day stressing out.
Great, now I've arrived at a solution that bypasses two of my obstacles: Wake up early and write first thing in the morning. I still have to deal with the third obstacle, because writing in the morning doesn't really deal with the fact that writing is intimidating.
Solution #3: make it a more manageable task. This includes outlining, which I talked about here: https://twitter.com/thewritinghippo/status/1310218716169166849?s=20. If you’re a pantser, you can skip that thread and go straight to my other tactic, which is pre-writing.
Pre-writing just means I think about what the scene I’m about to write needs to achieve, and then I pre-write three to five sentences about it. It helps to shine a little bit of light into an otherwise dark tunnel.
Lifehack: I pre-write the night before, so that in the morning, I don’t even spend time thinking about what the scene needs to achieve, I just look at my chapter summary and go, “Oh yeah! That’s what today’s scene needs to do!” And then I go for it.
I'll do another thread on how to make writing a LOT less intimidating sometime next week. I know all about the chaos demons telling you that you suck at this; I've got plenty of my own. Anyway, back to convenience.
Another part of making writing as convenient as possible: get rid of as many writing comforts as you can. I used to HAVE to have a fancy hot drink and something yummy while I write. But then I realized that these, too, are obstacles.
Making that pulled milk tea and toasting a nice bagel? They take time. Time I could use for extra sleep or to write. And the eating and sipping distract me from the actual writing. Nowadays, I just have a cup of water, and THEN after my daily 2K is done, I have a nice breakfast.
I also used to go to cafes to write, but again, that's an inconvenience, because I actually have to get dressed and pack my laptop and drive and find parking before I can write. It's a heck of a lot of obstacles that I've given myself.
Of course, if you live with noisy roommates, writing at home may be a luxury you can't afford, in which case you gotta do what you gotta do, but the bottomline is: look for obstacles you can cut.
So what are some of the obstacles keeping you from writing?
So what are some of the obstacles keeping you from writing?
