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I’m Terrible With A Rigid Writing Routine. Here’s What I Do Instead.
How to build your ideal writing routine from someone who puts the “free” in freelancer.
I’m a full-time writer, and most people (strangers, family members, and anyone outside the limited wiring industry) think I write daily.
Before I became a writer, I assumed other writers did the same.
If you look at the long list of tasks I need to complete by the end of the working week, writing every day would be the most logical thing to do.
But I’m not very good at that. I’m not good at adhering to a rigid writing routine — or, come to think of it, I’m pretty woeful at adhering to a loose writing routine.
Even though I’m obsessed with routines and use them in every other facet of my life, when it comes to writing, I can’t seem to make them work.
Every time I attempt a strict writing routine, I fall into the same rhythm; I can stick to it for one day, but by the second day, I’m re-organising my schedule, and by the third day, I’m chastising myself for having “given up.”
Here’s what I know, though—as someone who just debuted her first novel and has been writing full-time for the past seven years, there’s more than one way to write.
This is my writing routine for the people who don’t love a writing routine.
I build a week-by-week schedule
Most writers will tell you to set your working hours. They say:
- Decide what you’re going to work — Monday to Sunday, which days are you going to work?
- What hours of each day are you going to work? Not the total number of hours but the start and end times for each day.
- What days are you going to have off? Set those limits.
It’s the same schedule I had when I was employed as a copywriter—it’s the time I was contracted to work and what I got paid for.
But this doesn’t make sense to me, and it probably doesn’t make sense to you.
Why?
