A good routine is essential not only in golf, but in writing and anything else where you must have consistency to succeed. That said, the key to having a successful routine is finding what works for you and sticking with it, even when it occasionally doesn't work for you.
Young writers always obsess about other writer's processes. I did. I used to ask everyone where they wrote, what kind of program they used, did they ever hangout in coffee shops with their laptops? I listened and then I tried it for myself. I went to coffee shops, I wrote at my dining room table, I bought cork boards and chalk boards, I tried long-hand on yellow legal pads. I played music that went along with the soundtrack of the film I was writing. I tried to write warm up pages, timed-writings, standing on my head to get the blood flowing. If I heard or read about a writer's routine, I gave it a whirl.
And then I started to pay attention to what I actually just plopped into on the days that I turned out good work.
And I found that for me, I needed Seattle. I needed a rainy day, a hot mug of caffeine and a room so silent I could hear the rain tapping on the roof.
Okay, I guess I should tell you - I don't live in Seattle. I live in sunny Southern California where right now the heat and light is making me feel like doing anything, ANYTHING, but write.
Also, I needed to spend about an hour screwing around. Paying bills, doing dishes, organizing my desk. With intermittent bursts of looking at the blank page I needed to attack.
So my ideal writing situation was a day where it was raining (in Southern California) and I had an entire day to write undisturbed giving me enough time to screw around for an hour before getting started. Yeah, right. Let me tell you how often that happened for me in the beginning. In the beginning, I was working an 60 hour a week job in development, reading an avalanche of scripts each weekend.
I had to accept that if I wanted to be a writer I needed to write. And I had to come up with something that worked for me and stick with it.
You must find your own routine that works for you for, but if you can glean any clues from my process here it is:
1. Get large caffeinated beverage. (Hopefully you aren't a caffeine addict and can skip right to step two.) Close the blinds and shut the door to my office and I play my Rain For Relaxation softly on my iTunes. This is my simulated Seattle.
2. Make a realistic goal* and write it down. (Today I am going to write bad version of 4 scenes on the script and put all my edits I made in the novel on the computer in preparation to move forward on that tomorrow.)
3. Start. When I get stuck, I allow myself five minutes to pay that bill or check Facebook, but then I look back at my goal list and start.
4. At the end of my work day, if I don't complete something on my goal list I put it on the top of the list for tomorrow. The next day, I finish that before making a new list. I do not want to pile on. (And it's really satisfying to cross things off the list, isn't it?)
5. When I'm done. I am done. I can now leave and do whatever I want guilt free. This is my reward for meeting my goal. I do not try to do "extra" work unless I am really inspired and having fun. If that's the case - I go, go, go.
*Realistic Goals - this is really the trick. I used to always set myself up for failure by putting down way too much. If you are consistently not meeting your goals, then reduce them until you can get into a routine of finishing what you set out to do. If you breeze through your goals and still have hours on the clock, day after day, then step up the challenge a bit.
Secondly, to make this all work you need to carve out time to write. Make your time as consistent and sacred as possible. (My schedule as a full-time writer is usually six hours a day six days a week Sunday-Friday. With additional time not behind the computer before I go to bed to do research, reading or movie/tv viewing - all part of the job.) Sometimes, family obligations wipe out Sunday - but Monday through Friday are set in stone.
But, I didn't start off having the luxury of all this time to write. Who does? My point being, no matter how busy you are - even if you can only manage 20 minutes, three times a week to write - that's your sacred time. Stake it off and fight for it. It might take you a year to write a rough draft, but you'll get there if you trust your routine and you work on becoming consistent. After all, the year is going to pass anyway. I'd rather have something to show for it than nothing.
You can't wait to be inspired. You have to develop a routine to write through the muck until you uncover the inspiration. These are the skills you need to do this for a living, so don't wait for Seattle.
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