Writing Routines and Other Challenges

One of the things a lot of writers will press upon would-be authors, is the necessity of writing every day. As I often remind myself, Stephen King says, If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. However, for those of us who can’t afford to write full time, this can be a bit of a challenge. Finding the time and energy to write after a day a work, can feel like pushing melted butter uphill.

I’ve always believed that writing is one of those things you must do regularly to maintain the ability to do it. Like exercise, if you miss a few days, getting back into it can be hard. Something I used to use as an exercise involved starting to write without having a single idea in my head and not knowing where it might go. Sometimes what came out would be rubbish but often, I’d find myself creating an apparently well-plotted story as if that’s exactly what I’d set out to do. Now I find I have enough ideas to start writing a dozen books, so rarely have to tax my brain in order to know what the story will be about.

When I first started writing novels seriously (back in 2013), I lived in a pokey little cottage that was so small I spent most of my time in the kitchen. Filled with the eagerness of writing my very first book, I developed a routine and stuck to it rigidly for a couple of years. As I worked full time in occupational therapy, and also shared childcare duties with my former partner, I’d organise the evening meal after work and, if my son was staying, wait until he I’d got him tucked up in bed before starting to write. At the time this involved bashing away at an old laptop on the kitchen table. In those heady days, I’d often work until 10.30 or 11.00 at night and then spend another hour ‘coming down’ from whatever storyline I’d been bound up in.

During that time, I didn’t believe in writers block and as I had tons of ideas in my head, the task of starting to write each evening never troubled me—I’d just sit down and start writing and the words would emerge. More recently, the death of my father had a debilitating effect on my writing routine and for many months I could scarcely write more than a few sentences at a time. Even more recently, health problems impacted on my ability to stay awake in the evenings and I’d often have to crawl off to bed at 8.00pm.

These days, while I still have occasional days off from writing, I usually manage to knock out a few hundred words each day and a few thousand at the weekends. Given that my best day of writing culminated in 6,500 words in an eight-hour session, my daily target now is closer to 3,000 words a day. Well, let’s say 2,500. A couple of thousand, anyway.

NB A version of this post first appeared on the blog Chez Maximka.

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