How I Wrote Every Day for Thirty Days
Every writer can adopt a writing habit.
Writers write.
It’s pretty simple like that. But for me, it wasn’t that simple. I mean, yes, I’ve always called myself a writer, but I wasn’t doing a whole lot of writing to prove that I was indeed worthy of this title.
I was lying to myself, and I knew it. It made me feel like a fraud. Since 2020, I’ve been consciously making the effort to turn things around. In the last two years alone, I’ve steadily made progress by writing more than I ever had in the last ten years.
While I am proud of myself, I felt like that wasn’t enough. I wasn’t as productive a writer as I wanted to be. Often, I would find myself slipping back into my old ways of indiscipline and that was all because I hadn’t yet formed a writing habit.
Yes, I would write consistently for many days. But I would also go for weeks without writing a single thing. It was a far better improvement than my absolutely lazy self in the past, but it was still not good enough.
In November 2022, I decided to get back to blogging after neglecting my blog for so long. I had also been on Medium for years but had never published a single article. I vowed to change that in November.
It was slow in the beginning. I did my best, writing every other day or so. It was hard, but I was writing, and that felt great. At the end of November, I had a taste of what it truly felt like to have a purpose, to wake up every day and look forward to writing. I was filled with abundant energy to keep going.
Not ready to lose that kind of enthusiasm it had taken me so long to cultivate, I came up with a new goal.
I decided to write every day in December. Every single day, for the next 31 days. What I would write didn’t matter. I just had to show up every day and produce content. That was it.
For the record, I understand that you don’t need to write every day to call yourself a writer. I know that. However, I chose to do this so I could adopt a consistent writing habit once and for all.
For the next thirty days, I wrote every day and posted an article three times a week. Actually, I tried to publish an article daily, but I quickly learned that it was unfavorable to my schedule. I changed it to three times a week which worked perfectly for me.
Today is the thirty-first day of my daily writing and I have learned so much from it. Most importantly, I have successfully formed the writing habit I always dreamed about. At the beginning of this 30-day journey, I found it very hard to keep up. However, by the time I was in my third week, my body unconsciously gravitated toward writing and I didn’t even have to think about it.
Now, I can’t fathom myself not writing at all. The thought of it makes me ill, to be honest.
Here are the four things I did to form a daily writing habit.
1. Know what time you’re most comfortable with
All writers are different. Some prefer to write in the mornings, some at noon, and others in the evening, or late at night. Identify the time you’re most productive and stick with it.
I do different kinds of writing at different times of the day. My most productive time is early in the morning at 6:00 am. I write my articles and blog posts at this time of the day. Later in the day, somewhere between 1 pm and 4 pm, I prefer to edit my blog posts or fiction. I write my novels in the evening and late into the night.
Damn, it sounds like I’m writing every hour of the day. True. But I’m currently unemployed so I have a lot of time to spare.
Maybe you’re not as lucky as I am and have a job. So of course, writing morning, afternoon, and evening is very unrealistic. I get that. In fact, you don’t even have to write like that; it’s insane. You know what time works best for you. It could be a few minutes or hours during the day. Find that time and keep it sacred.
Even if I’m unable to write in the evening or afternoon, I never trade my morning writing time.
If you’re not sure how to find the time to write, you can read this article I wrote for more insight.
2. Avoid all distractions
One of the things that got in my way of writing was distractions — from my phone to the people around me. That made it very hard for me to concentrate on writing. To begin this challenge, I made it a point to keep all distractions away from me.
I never go on social media in the morning. If I do that, I’ll have to kiss productivity for the rest of the day goodbye. If I have to use the Hotspot on my phone to connect to the internet on the computer, I will silence my phone so that I don’t get distracted by notifications.
As for the people in my life, they know how important writing is to me. They think twice before coming to me when they see me behind my computer early in the morning. Unless someone’s dying, don’t interrupt me. It stops my flow and makes me very irritable. Few things make me angry, and at the top of that list is when people disturb me when I’m engrossed in my writing.
Thankfully, my family understands this.
3. Have a ready supply of ideas
What happens when you’re ready to write and have put away all kinds of distractions, only to realize that you have no idea what to write? It’s a really annoying experience.
Sometimes we fail to write not because we don’t want to, but because we have no idea what to write. We lack ideas. As a writer, one of the worst things that can happen to you is lacking ideas. After all, without ideas, what exactly are you going to write about?
Having a ready supply of ideas makes it easier to write consistently. I have a very simple system for this. Most of the time, ideas come to me, or I find them lurking around. Anytime I get hold of these ideas, I write them down. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous they are, I write every single one of them down before I forget about it.
I have a word document titled Headlines, pinned to my WPS Office workspace. Every time I get an idea for my blog, I write it down in this document. I simplify the idea into a headline with a brief outline of its content.
When I wake up in the morning and sit behind my computer, I don’t have to spend the rest of the next hour staring at a blank page, wondering what I’m going to write about. All I do is open the Headlines document and select one of the many headlines I have. Then I just start writing. As simple as that.
This is perhaps the main reason I was able to keep writing every day without running out of ideas or energy. I already knew what I was going to write beforehand.
Whenever an idea comes to you, try to write it down. It may not be for a blog post, but perhaps, for a novel. It doesn’t matter what it is, always write down your ideas. If not, you’d end up forgetting some of the best ideas that come to you.
In my experience, writing your ideas is one of the ways to beat writer’s block.
4. Silence your negative thoughts
Forming a habit is freaking hard. Your mind, body, and soul will rebel the moment you decide to do something that goes against everything you know. If you’re not used to writing consistently, your mind would wage war on you every step of the way.
Every day, I was plagued with thoughts of quitting. “Don’t wake up. Keep sleeping.” These were the words I heard in my head every morning when I wanted to wake up and write. In the past, I would have listened, no problem. After all, sleeping was way easier than waking up at 6:00 am to write.
I had to make a conscious effort to ignore those thoughts. So, I came up with a simple plan.
The moment I hear those negative thoughts, I intentionally do the very opposite. When my mind tells me to keep sleeping, I wake up. When it says I’m writing trash, I ignore it and keep writing. I never listen to the negative things my mind tells me.
Rather, I use those thoughts as fuel to keep on writing.
Instead of quitting because I’m a bad writer, I have rather accepted how bad I am. With this in mind, I practice every day to get better.
One of my goals in life is to become a great writer. I can’t become great tomorrow if I don’t practice today. I refuse to listen to the nonsense my mind keeps spewing about me wasting my time as a writer.
I defied my negative thoughts so much that they had no choice but to change their tune. Now, instead of “Don’t wake up. Keep sleeping,” I hear, “What the hell are you still doing in bed? You want to be poor or something? Get your ass out of bed.”
Instead of “You’re a terrible writer. Stop wasting your time,” I hear, “Yes, you’re shit. But you’ll get better if you keep going.”
Instead of, “God, I’m writing trash,” I hear, “God, I’m writing trash. But who gives a fuck?”
Yes, my thoughts have evolved from negativity to positive profanity. It’s amazing.
Conclusion
Forming a daily writing habit is not easy. But it isn’t impossible. Anyone can do it as long as it’s something they truly desire. Of course, while writing daily is amazing, you don’t have to do that to call yourself a writer.
Yes, as a writer, you have to write consistently. But consistent writing doesn’t mean writing daily or several hours a day. You define what’s best for you.
If you write one hour, three days a week, you are as valid a writer as one who writes three hours, seven days a week.
We are all different and what works for one person may not work for another. So, find what works best for you and stick to it.
Believe in yourself and don’t let your mind tell you otherwise.
Keep writing. Keep going.
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Originally published at https://torshietorto.com on December 31, 2022.
