Persistent patient practice? Is it that makes a great writer or artist? It can’t be that simple…or hard. Let’s visit the question again. Why is anyone great really? What talent do they possess that so many never seem to have?
Many people think there is some secret they are missing. Some say there is a talent that is bestowed on just a chosen few. The conspiratorialists will tell you there is some fix set against the masses. Some guy behind him will tell you he has a hack or short cut that will fix things for you to beat that conspiracy.
None of that is true. You can talk to a million people and few of them will hit even close to what it will take to be a successful writer or any other creative endeavor for that matter. Even if they spout something close to the truth, they will not really know how to use it.
So is it really persistent patient practice?
The truth is you have to practice and get your stuff out there. Practice and production are two separate ends bound by a process. You will need all three to actually make any career or skill shine.
How long will it take?
That depends on the factors you start with. Everyone has pieces for the solution, but we don’t all have all the same pieces. You might have more skill than I do in some area. I might have more experience in another. The difference between people is why it’s so hard to do exactly what someone else has done to succeed right off the bat. In fact unless you are just very lucky, you will not have enough of the exact combination of factors that lead to their success.
Don’t let anyone fool you even with the best of connections and plenty of money to back them, every writer still has to work through all the key work to get any where. You cannot buy your way into heaven. Since Gutenberg invented the press there have been thousands of vanity publishing businesses that come real close to making the claim that anyone can write an instant best seller.
A Writer Born
The truth is fledgling writers are going to have to write a lot and keep on writing over a long period of undetermined time to get enough skill, develop their mindset, allow enough to people see their stuff, receive enough of the right feedback to make the right improvements they need, and for the stars to align just right to become an overnight success. Persistent patient practice pays off every time.
Same Song Another Verse
Persistent patient practice not new really. Every profession has the same curve. Fireman to Writer we all must put in our dues. There is no other way. That is the real skill. You have to put in the work.
Where to Start
So what skill does a writer need to pay those dues? The big three that come to my mind are persistence, patience and practice. Those three skills are the start.
Persistence
I start with persistence. There are lots of terms describe this attribute from dogged determination to resilience to tenacity to even, my favorite term plain old stubborn.
All of those way of thinking are really about one thing. We are answering one question: When do I quit? We answer that with our mindset. Will we discipline ourselves to endure our challenge? Will we keep moving forward one step at a time with a definite plan in mind instead of just freaking out or being reactive?
Patience
Out of persistence we develop our patience. Bruce lee said that “Patience is concentrated strength.” He meant that to be patient was to actively work for a given destination.
True patience has little to do with taking things and moving on. That’s toughness. It is a useful attribute but in reality it is quite passive. Patience is engages the obstacles and breaks them down like water on a stone. Water is very patient.
Patience requires us to make a plan to act from if we want to create something great. As Dr. Alex Lickerman said in Psychology Today, patience is essential. ” It defends us against foolish, impulsive behavior, gives us time to consider our options carefully, plan appropriately, and execute effectively.”
With patience we create the self-confidence to win, come to recognize the goal is not crucial to be happy, as well as build the determination to take the next small step forward in our practice.
Practice
Our practice is the path itself. It is getting up at five am to pound out our pages. We make different choices with a practice. Instead of watching TV, we choose to sit down in the evening to go over our drafts. We choose to do some research at lunch or use our break times to learn how to use keywords better. A practice is the active application of both persistence and patience combined into a practice.
The Takeaway
The writer’s path is found in just three words. Persistent Patient Practice. From that point is where your path is found.
Motivated writing after skip day. We all delude ourselves that a day off will fix all our woes. So we skip a day of writing. Then the next day comes and we find that our self motivation is tough. The key to making the most of your vacation is the certainty that will outpace the low motivation we now feel. In fact the rewards are far better than almost everything else. Here are some of the best tools I have fund.
Habit and Ritual Magic
Keeping a regular writing time puts a routine factor into the writing process. We tend to get stuck in routines, so you can use that tendency to juice up your writing. When you view sitting down to write as just another part of your day, it provides a little motivational push to be there on time writing instead of skipping the day.
Mantras
Have a mantra and a goal for the good and the bad times. You will hit both. Having a mantra like “I got this” may sound offbeat to some, but it works. Even using a work like “peace” to promote a feeling when you sit down to work can have a great effect on your willingness to get the work done.
Praise Works
You can ward off the need for motivated writing after skip day if you remember to praise raise yourself when you show up. Don’t just kick your own ass when you don’t do well. If you show, you get credit. Showing is 90% of the game. Self-praise recognizes your work and we all love to be recognized. All too often we forget that we can do that all by ourselves. Praise yourself first, if you need a critique do it after the frustration of a bad day wears off.
See Work as a Game
Staying in the game means turning your head game on. Prizes come. Prizes go. The best thing about working like your writing is a game is that there is always another reward down the road. Treating your work like a game will allow you to provide yourself with all kinds of rewards for leveling up, improving skills, and scoring points.
Imagine you are Writing.
Strange as it may sound, the mind can be tricked. It can not tell imagination from reality. If you imagine yourself pounding the keys or scribbling along with the pen, the mind will believe it. The feeling you get from your imagination is a more powerful motivative boost than just telling your mind to get to work.
Write Now. Edit Later.
Trying for a perfect draft on the first go is a recipe for failure and frustration. Speed write your ideas. Get the rough done first, then you can go back for an edit and cleanup. Break away the perfection monster in your head. Getting started is one of the better ways get traction and some momentum. Once you have a draft feel free to let that edit monster to rampage like Godzilla.
Daily Minimums
Avoid taking on too much in one day on a project. Set your goals based on the size and scope. Set your daily minimums so low that you will have no excuse for avoiding the work. The interesting thing about minimums is that once you are rolling you will likely do more. Consider it a bonus. But, keep the starting jump small to motivate you and build both momentum and more confidence. Instant motivation, writing done, no skip day what so ever. What could be better?
Change the Process.
Self-sabotaging procrastination is what every writer faces. Even the big guys will do it. The first big chunk is to sit down. Do that first. Avoid thinking “I will write tomorrow.” You won’t do it. Write today. Gain motivation tomorrow. Avoid the skip day entirely.
Track it.
Put an initial for your project on the calendar for the day’s work, then add a check mark when you are done. You can use a scheduler too. Though, a Calendar is more impressive when you can see the entire month at a glance. You self motivate and reafirm when you can see weeks of checkmarks filling the pages in a streak. Bonus. You can hang that calendar beside where you can see it, so when you are writing you get that little pick me up to get going or keep going.
Writer’s block got your motivation?
Get up and move. Take a walk or a swim. Tap into other creatives with a book, podcast or TV for a short trip. Go to a coffee shop and people watch while you day dream. Sometimes what you need to trigger your own thinking is another idea, even if it is not your idea or even the right idea. Even no specific ideas at all should you choose to use the daydream approach. The point is to change your perspective, move some of the blood from your feet to your head and or just clear your mental decks to get the idea machine in your head moving.
Outside Support
Writing alone can be more than your motivation can handle. Take your motivation needs and your writing to a writing group. Getting outside feedback, encouragement and accountability are excellent pluses for writer’s groups. Far better solution than a skip day.
NaNoWriMo for the Win
A great writer’s group to try is NaNoWriMo–National November writing Month. Every November members write a 50,000 word book.
Sometimes motivation is partly about knowing you can do something with confidence. Everyone starts out in the same place on this. Using a writer’s group for a specific project, like writing a first book in a month, is a good way to use some training wheels to get that confidence and motivation for other projects.
Changeups
The project stalls in the middle. Change up time. Use a different writing style. Move to a different scale of project like moving from your book to a short story or blog post. Turn your work into a commercial or your ad into a drama. Change where you are writing. Take your show on the road. Bloggers can write guest posts or write for an entirely different blog. You can write a creative post for social media post, just don’t spend all day doing dozens of them.
Writing Prompts
Use writing prompts to break out a new idea. You can find them all over the web and books like Writing Down the Bones or Unjournaling. You can also use real life. Recal something that happened yesterday or from child hood. Newspapers and Magazines both are idea mines, just do a little digging.
Bribery.
It’s ok if you reward yourself a cup of coffee or some treat for some milestone you want to get to. There is also extortion. No desert at the restaurant Friday if the words are not met. The key here is to not be over indulgent or vindictive. You want to motivate yourself, not left wondering what Jenny Craig meal you want tonight or never tasting a cookie ever again.
Ask Yourself: “Why?”
Get back to your why. Take some time to remember why you are writing. Why did you take on this project? Knowing and using your why is a very big motivator. Take some time to recall and visualize the finished project too. Use your feelings as well. How does it feel to be done? Then get back to work.
Cut your Workload in two.
It’s easy to pile up a long list of things to do. Cutting down the things you have to do closes all kinds of mental folders and allows you to focus on the remainder with far less worry and far more focus. In general it’s best to have only three to five major things to be done on any given day as well.
Change your schedule around.
Instead of working first thing in the morning, try to write at night. Eat lunch late by a couple of hours. Skip swimming laps to hang out with friends. Time and event changes stimulates excitement in your brain that gives you happy feelings and a need to put things to right again.
Toys, Uh I mean Tools
Use writing tools so that your work is better, faster, less frustrating and intimidating. Nothing kills a lack of motivation like the right tools for the job. Timers to take the guess work out of how long you have. Stimulate some idea generation with Quora, Writing programs like Grammarly and editing programs like Calmly, Trello and Evernote organizine your research and work. Readability tools like The Readability Test Tool Writer take out of much of the worry and stall factor from many writing hang-ups and fill in many of your writing gaps and needs. Here is a great list of 50 of them to look through for what you need. 50 Writing Tools
Other Writers
Talk to writers by joining a group of writers. One good one is The Writing Cooperative . Getting advice from other writers or making contact to get advice from with a writer you admire can be an incredible boost for your motivation.
Simple Self Motivation
The trick to making self-motivation work is found in consistency and variety. We all need motivation every day. If not for that day, to save up for those bad days that are going to rain down on us in the future. That’s why a little motivation every day will go a long way and your skip days will be few and far between.
Obtaining focus As I find myself struggling to get words down I dance all over all kinds of subjects. I am thinking of my car keys. My stomach is wondering what’s for dinner. A problem from work or one of the issues with one of the kids rises to demand some of my time. Almost anything but the writing I want to get done. Sound familiar? What’s missing? Why can I not get into the flow? What do I lack? The answer is focus.
Focus is a tricky thing. We need focus and we can trick ourselves into believing we have it when we don’t. That’s the bad news. The good news is you can also trick your mind into being focused with some tips and tricks.
I should point out though; that this is not a one size fits all world we live in. You are going to have to try some of these things for yourself and be ready to either customize it to fit you better or even just work with it till it works or just chuck it if it is a complete no go.
Focus on Friend
One of the best tools for staying focused is to write like you are talking to a friend. This takes the pressure off what to think about and also gives you a point of focus. As I learned in the martial arts, focus on a target makes for better practice. Placing that target in the right area will determine if you hit in the right area and actually make contact as well. One of the practice concepts we use for targets to place them behind where we want to hit. That way we don’t look too hard and actually punch through.
It is the same concept here. Your target is to get words down but holding a conversation with a friend in your imagination kills the effect of the blank page syndrome we all suffer from. Suddenly you do not edit as you write.
Paper and Pen Focus Plan
It may sound ancient and antiquated, but I have found these two tools are the best for planning out there, at least for my money.
The trouble with planning is that we want to look at our project from the larger sky view rather than get down to the ground pounding view getting the words on the page. Each job requires a different pace and speed.
Using a physical paper we head off much frustration by removing the need to edit ourselves. When we type it’s almost instinctive to want to hit the backspace and kill what offends… That is one reason why I tend to use Notepad to speed write my first drafts. I do not have to see anything but a simple window without any editing going on. When we force our fingers to move as fast as we are thinking we also cut our thinking down. We focus on the topic more and cut the chatter in our heads so we can get more of the right words on the page.
Doodle dandy to obtain focus
There is also a side benefit to it. You can doodle. I had not noticed that one till I read an article on it by Pamela Hodges, Doodle Your Way out of Writer’s Block. Thinking without words in lines and pictures is a differenent way to stimulate ideas than a writer’s normal word based approach. The strange thing is it does work. Our brains tend to think in picures. If you doubt me, what do you see in your head when I say elephant. Chances are it is not the word. I do not always find the exact idea I want directly in the doodles but at worst it is a nice break that still lets the brain think. That break often does give me a new trac to run on.
Practice obtaining focus
Writing skills take practice and getting focus is just one of them. Taking the time to use and work with new and existing focusing practices ensures that you will grow your focus skills.
Deadlines you need these to obtain focus
Deadlines are one of those love/hate things we all have. Unless you are writing just for fun with the time commitments of a beach comber, you are going to need to set deadlines to get your work done. It’s just the way the world works and the way writers get paid.
The wonder of deadlines though is they are not just for the end of things like the week or project. You can use them for work days, for chapters, for a given white paper, for outlines and research. In fact you can use them for everything including this writer’s favorite tools, the writing sprint and the editing sprint. They both work exactly like they sound. Set a timer and play beat the clock.
Even your muse shows up with a deadline…eventually. Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway and Asimov all worked so that they did not wait for their muse to arrive when they set to work. They demanded she get to work. You can do this too. The trick is to see the start of your work day as the muse’s deadline for showing up. So what if she does not show up? Then start without her for a time. She will get so frustrated with all the uninspired crap displayed before her that she will be there.
Work on deep habits
People have many ways to fool themselves into believing that they are productive. One of the more sinister is pseudo-depth. We mistake things like multi-tasking or even being too focused as working deep. The trick here is to remember that when we work deep, we are letting the mind have time to come up with its ideas. We do this best in a time and place where we can let our thoughts work out for themselves.
Multitaskers kill their productivity. Stanford found that when we multi-tasks that we hurt our cognitive control. In their study the researchers said that multi-taskers have shorter attention spans, cannot consciously recall or switch between jobs as well as those who focus and complete a single task before moving on.
Too many thoughts means no focus
Distractions are the real enemy here. The source and type of distraction did not matter. Anything from your cell going off to the kids playing or any number of other outside factors takes your mind off the ball. All distractions kill your line of thought. This holds just as true with multi-tasking as it does with random outside stuff. A change in your line of thought, for whatever reason even for a short time, reaches the same end. Shallow work.
Deep thinking solution for obtaining focus
Taking time each week to work on one line of thought over a long period is a great investment in deep thinking that will greatly improve your end work. For more on this I recommend you read some of Cal New Ports’ work Deep Work and the article Deep Habits: The Danger of Pseudo-Depth
Time is on your side obtaining focus is there
Where we focus our attention is always the key in the focus game. Writing with an emotional focus can be a plus too. Instead of working to beat your production numbers, try focusing on the pleasure of the writing itself. Make it a game. This works great when you are using a friend in your imagination. Enjoying the conversation is automatically there. You can do the same thing by just being aware that you are enjoying what you have to say. Ignore outside distractions like time, the amount of work or even the deadline and the ticking clock. Instead just enjoy the work for the work’s sake.
Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art covers this nicely. When we do our work for the joy of doing the work itself, we always get some positive biofeedback from our time. This will not only make you more productive, but could very well lift your mood and reduce stress as well.
Writing sprints for obtaining focus
Sprints are easy to understand and easier to do once you practice them for a bit to shake the weird feeling. Write as fast as you can for a given time, ususally between five and 25 minutes. When the timer goes off, you are done. Stop. Count the words. Note them. Then cue up the timer and try to beat your score. Repeat till you have done however many you sprints have setup to do. Remember to take a break every now and then to give the mind a break. You would not run sprints on a track back to back all day. Writing is no different for your mind. Writing sprints are that simple.
There are a couple of ideas to bear in mind.
First have fun. Work on getting as much of your thoughts down as possible. Do not worry over anything else.
Second set reasonable goals in your sprint. For instance do not set word counts you cannot possibly make or are even a push.
Word sprints are meant to build confidence and skill as much as make your production goals. You will have a better time and create better copy if you work to get goals that are in a reasonable range. Shooting for 500 words in 25 minutes when you know you can easily make 450 is a good streatch. 600 when you can only make 400 is off the mark. You can even use ridiculous goals like using five random words to start a 25 minute race. The entire point of the goal is to just get you moving. Once you are moving the process will naturally take you higher.
Obtaining focus is mostly just a matter of setting the right habits and routines in place for you. Take your time. Play with new ideas. Choose what works for you. That’s how to find focus in your work.
Understand the stumbling block is a classic concept. If you know what is tripping you up, you can get over it. That is a constant for writers. We all have our own personal stumbling blocks. We all adapt in our own ways.
One of the bigger stumbling blocks for a writer is the day to day self-discipline to get the work done. Nothing happens unless we get in front of that blank page and make it happen. It is that simple and that hard. To make it happen we build our self-discipline.
Discipline Plan
Getting past your stumbling blocks means you have to know yourself and the stumbling block a little bit and formulate a plan for how to prevent your own writing hara-kiri. Here are a few things to line up so that you stave off that temptation to kill your still unborn writer’s life.
Inside You
As writers we already know that when we write we learn about ourselves. We learn what is deep inside stuff coupled with stuff we just ignore. It’s a mess of ignorance and unawareness. We stand a better chance of getting something written if we understand ourselves, a major stumbling block for us all, and the inner self-sabotaging portion a little more. We need to ask ourselves some questions about our thoughts that we have no self-discipline.
A few of the questions we can ask are:
Were you being too critical of the work, especially when we are dealing with a fresh first draft?
Did the ideas lost before we get them to the page?
Are you quitting somewhere shortly after the passion wears off?
Do we finish everything to the last yard, then run for the hills? We shy from Seth Godden’s rule “Ship it”?
Why does it seem you only create ideas that fail to work beyond page 45?
Are you so comfortable with your sideline gig to support your writing that is now the unplaned carreer you never imagined you would have? Did you take your current gig to give you the time to write yet somehow you never get around to putting in a consistant writing effort?
Have you restarted that fantastic project multiple times with scant pages to show for it?
I am totally guilty of almost all of these. You should see all the partial starts and incompletes I have on my computer and in my files that are still in waiting. I think every writer out there has way more of these that they would care for. They are the road markers on the way to becoming a writer.
Clunkers and Solutions
Our clunkers are kept more for sentimental reasons than any real chance they will become the next great novel or a published short. I seriously doubt I have a million dollar ad in there either. However these same stories, essays and other scribbles serve a greater purpose. They are part of the practice and feedback every writer needs so that they can fix what what is incomplete in their process.
Incomplete
Each incomplete work or incomplete idea come down to finding your solutions in the nueances of your basic process. If your problem is your inner critic, you need to learn how to shut him off. Learn some Writing Confidence. Adding confidence is a great way to shut that critic up. One fix is simple. Commit to writing a really crummy first draft that covers the entire canvas. Your point is to get it done. Do not edit. Do not even pick up the phone when that critic calls. Write.
Story Fade
Issues with a fading story line can often be from either lack of technique or plan. A little study of story lines and plot structues helps. To that end Joseph Campbell’s ‘The Hero With A Thousand Faces’ and Shawn Coyne’s ‘The Story Grid’ are great starts. Follow that up with some writing structure like the foolscap outline and/or Blake Snyder’s beat sheet, ‘Save the Cat’, are often all that’s needed for many to break out of this.
Don’t feel that you should know everythhing right at the start. Even published authors and writers have to work on what they don’t know and what they think they know. Writing is not just about learning new stuff. It is also about learning new things you do not know in the stuff you alrready know. This includes your actual work. Some writers go so far as to point out that they have even fully written the entire book before they figured out what the story was about.
Just in case you missed it, yes, finding out things can and often does mean you will rewrite the whole manuscript. That’s the process and you work will not just be better for it, it will actually work.
That’s how powerful theme and story line are. Am I really good at this? Well, I think that if I live another 50 years, I might just have it almost mastered. If not, I will have died trying. That is enough.
Foolscap and Beat Sheet
Pantsers will love the foolscap. Plotters the beat sheet. The main idea is to know where you are going. After that it’s a matter of watching for the slow points, fill in the gaps, and let the bodies hit the floor. You are free to make a mess that needs to be written out of too. Steven King is famous for this one. As writers we are not really tied to any given form, but it’s generally a good idea to atleast know where you are going when you take off. Not all of us can be Steven King.
Ship it
Got a ship problem? That is how Seth Goden phrases not finishing. You need to work on your habit of finishing. Like all habits, start small. If you have a problem shipping, ship smaller projects more often at first. Build your habit as you scale up.
Process Problems
There are a lot of places you can fail here form finishing a draft to being unable to put a finished manuscript in the mail. In general though I would look at my process then break the project down and finish each step. Becareful of that voice to take off a day between. My rule here is take the first next step the next day. Plan to draft. Draft to edit. Edit to rewrite. Rewrite to polish. Polish and ship. No skipped days to celebrate. I take one small step the next day. The end rule is to ship on the done. Do not wait. Ship. Ship every time. Commit to it. Ship. You can also start your own blog with a weekly, thrice weekly or even daily column. Make those deadlines. Ship. Kill that failure to fully commit. Ship.
Seth Godin on shipping is totally spot on. Here’s a great interview with Godin on shipping ‘Shipping Creative Work with Seth Godin’ to start you. You can also read his book The Practice.
The Never Ending Restart
Keep on restarting a project? Good. Keep on building. Keep getting up. We fall a lot when we are learning. Sometimes it takes some space to get the guts to plunge again. Do it. Just one small change, fall forward. You want to go further than you did the last time. Ship.
Learn
Learn what you need to keep going. Is it accountability? Join a group. Take a class and use your work as the class project. Join NaNoWriMo. Read deep into a writer who you want to follow and try his guidance. No two writers will have the same view. Use some other creative that clicks, such as the writings of Vincent van Gogh. Emulate what they did and see what works for you.
Done This
My never ending start breakthrough started on one snowy November morning in 2011. I bailed on November 30 2011. Picked it up again January 2, 2012. Dropped it 16 pages later. Back again mid July 2013 for another five whole pages. Ponied up for Nanowrimo November 1 2013 and again in 2016. Three pages total between both. Placed my manuscript such as it was over on Some Day Isle. It took Re-reading Steven Pressfield’s War of Art for the second time to start again on June 8 2018. That one clicked. I finished the draft.
More, I gained control of a new habit. I write every day. 1177 days later I have better results than the preceeding years. I finished the first story split into three books. The next day I stared a new book. That draft is done and I am on to my fifth draft.
Yes I still have problems getting my editing done, but the fact is my writing habit is solid. I am working on the edits.
Comfort Issues
Comfort, it is big thing. We all like to eat. The trouble is: are we, at times, too comfortable for our own good? If you are a writer that is not getting work done, then you could be too comfortable.
Shake Things
You don’t have to stop earning money, but you do need to shake things up a bit to create a sense of urgency to get the work done. You do need some fire. My own experience with a steady sideline job lead to a comfort zone that I would likely have been better off getting out of at least ten years earlier than I did. The old saw says you gotta be hungry. The trouble with too steady of an income outside of writing for the writer is often a loss in drive to get stuff out there because you don’t feel a need to. In short, while you still may be producing, you have taken the edge off your hunger enough that you will not sacrifice an evening out or you will binge wach Netflix instead of getting a chapter edited.
Mind you I did not just up and quit. I did some sensible steps that if you are like me you should consider. I cleared a great deal of my debt load, saved up as I created a simple frugal life style, worked to up my writing habits and created an alternate writing based income path. In short I and my wife worked on an exit strategy so that when we felt we were ‘ready’, we could move forward.
You are going to have to think around this one too. Your plan will be different, but if you cover your bases you can transition to a full time writing career. The key is to look at all the possible choices and choose what works for you. Just remember to keep your main income till you are certain you can cover your basics for a long period of time.
What known writers did
I would suggest you learn from other writers on this. Isaac Asimov was still working as a professor with over 130 books to his credit. Steven King jumped from teaching high school English when he sold his first big seller Christine for an $400k advance and royalties. Michael Crichton had 15 books to his name, which he used to pay for his Harvard medical degree, but he only made the jump from thorasic surgery at Stanford Univerytity with his first big hit The Andromeda Strain. The fact is most writers have to go through a time of planning and work before we are able to write to live. Plan and work this part carefully. The big trouble here is finding your sweet spot. Think of it as having just enough rope to hang you without enough drop.
Retrun to write
When you get stuck and come back to a book or project after some time off. Forgive yourself for the drop. You don’t really need the baggage. Then evaluate where you are and fix whatever you think is your current issue. Create your plan. Act. Track your results. Look for places to improve. Create and implements those changes. Repeat the process.
Know your weaknesses to understand stumbling blocks
Everyone has habits that hold them back in the writing process. These can be a tech addiction like gaming or Facebook, food based addiction like not being able to pass up cookies or a habit addiction such as smoking. That’s why the writer must know what addictions can prevent getting their pages in every day. Self-control is an essential skill in the writer’s tool kit. Developing your self-control, will power if you will, is a key step to being able to ensure your writing time is not taken over by another.
Remove temptations/simplify your process
The next step is to remove those temptations so that you clear your space, time and diet of those things that make getting the work done. Set clearer goals and use an execution plan. Make clear goals once you figure out who you are and what you want to achieve. Honest self-answers for five key questions will aid you in your effort.
1. What are your core values?
You need three to seven traits, such as honesty, team work, motivation that describe yourself and your brand/work. Use those to stay on track.
2. What is your core focus?
This is often call a unique selling position. What makes you different from the competition? A clear focus helps prevent distraction by those things that do not fit the focus.
3. What is your 3 year target?
Studies show that people often over estimate what they can do in the next three months to a year out, but they under estimate what they can do in three years. Plan your longer term goals and break them down into yearly, quarterly and monthly goals. Ensure they are reached by building upon small daily habits that add up over time. Set small minimums so that you will keep momentum.
4. What is your marketing strategy?
Know your key market. For a writer that is not just who will buy your work, but also who you are writing to, aka your avatar. When someone reads you work you are talking to them. Who is that person?
5. What issue do you solve?
This is important for a writer. You do not have just a theme for your books or articles but also for your business. Knowing your theme will prevent you from marketing to those who have no real need for your products and services. It will also help you to serve your true market better.
NEXT Start small and build
We build our best habits out of small repeated steps. Write five minutes a day for a week. Grow to ten next week. Focus on the habit of writing. Build the overall time to thirty minutes or more a day, but set a tiny fallback position so that when things happen, and they will, you can keep the momentum and self-motivation going. If you lose that momentum you are far more likely to quit.
The first minimum I found was just writing two sentences from one of my high school English teachers. The shortest I’ve ever run into was to write just five words from Jessica Brodey. There are tonse of minimums to use from words to time based minimums.
One of the more flow induced is to write what ever comes to mind for a time. There is no staring on the page. You have to put words down the entire time. No checking to see if it’s bad or does not work. Bad ideas generate the process of creating ideas. Create enough ideas and you will get good ones. When your time is up, you can quit for the day.
A minimum gives you a small powerful step to stay in there. Keep it simple. Once you get to your minimum, you can quit. I have found low ball minimums are seldome the only thing I do. Most of the time, I get past them. You will too.
Accountability matters, but not so much.
I have used accountability in some efforts and failed. Accountability is like everything else, what works for you might not work for others. For me accountablitity was letting my wife know where I was in the project. For others there’s the need for a coach or direct mentor. Writers often use tracking to hold themselves accountable, such as writing down the hours completed or their word count on a calendar. The method is not the key part. You want a tool in place to ensure work is moves forward and gets shipped.
Reward a job well done
The work itself is a biofeedback loop once you get it turned on, but you still need to acknowledge the major mile stones (chapters done, rough draft/edit/rewrite completed, etc…) as you move through the process. When you reach a given milestone, give yourself a reward. Do something you love as a break at the end of a chapter. Spend a little special time with a friend after the rewrite for the editor. Open that mystery package that came in this morning out of the blue when your day’s work is done. Recognize your progress with active positive recognition is a strong way to keep motivated and focused on longer projects from books to blogs to a weekly writing column.
Backup plan with set tiny minimums
Psychologists recommend using “implementation intention” to increase your will power. Having a plan for dealing with possible satiations will increase the effectiveness of your overall plan. For instance say you are planning to write your daily blog post before you go on line and get distracted by social media. You know you might need to do some additional research while working on the post. So your back up plan might be to have both chrome and Firefox web browsers. One is setup totally for your blog with blocks for those sites that distract you when you are working. You can use the child settings for this to block your inner child. Then use that browser when you have to go on line while you are writing and need to do research.
Make it flow.
Every writer uses flow to write. Every writer has to create their own way of getting into that state. For some it’s literally sit down and write at a specific time like Somerset Maugham. “…Fortunately for me inspiration strikes at 9am.”. Steven Pressfield likes to use the start of Homer’s Odyssey as a small ritual invocation to turn the writing lights on. Steven King drinks some water or tea and a set 8 o’clock to 8:30 time frame as part of his startup ritual. The key is to create a pattern that warms your brain up for the work ahead.
Track it.
The fact is you are going to need to see gains. You can use a calendar to write down your time, your word count, or even just put in a gold star for making your daily process goals. The point is to help you see that you are making headway.
Another tool is a journal.
Journals help you process life both strange and beautiful. Keeping a separate one for your experiences with writing your blog, books, or writing business can help you weather the down times and find solutions for any questions or issues you might have with a given type of writing, plot line, customers, etc… It also will help you see patterns in your writing and process, such as when do you produce the most or get the best ideas or are the most disciplined. Tracking is all about getting to know you. The better you know you, the better you can work.
Forgive yourself to move forward.
One of the most important parts is to remember we are all human. We can very often fail and come up short in our goals. Stuff happens and we can all too often get caught up in useless emotional traps. To win is to learn to keep the forward momentum. As many experts have told us, we all fall, but the win is to fall forward and keep moving.
A critical part of that fall forward process is to forgive ourselves. Acknowledge what happened and how it happened. Move on but leave the emotional baggage of anger, frustration behind. These emotions only drag you down and grind your momentum to a halt.
Learn from the missteps. Forgive yourself. Refocus,then get back to work. A great tool to forgive yourself is the Six Phase Meditation, a daily exercise that takes just ten minutes to refocus your mind for the day, while leaving the baggage behind. It’s got another advantage. It’s free and all over the web. YouTube or download it. It’s worth far more than the mere ten minutes you will use with it.
Organize your approach
The more missed stumbling blocks are the ones right in front of your face. They are often the ones that are easy to fix if you are just aware of them. One of the ones I used to fall prey to is how I spent and organized my writing periods. I found I got a lot more done if I just had an organized approach. I think you will too. Take a look at my article Build Your Morning Writing Routine for some ideas.
My thoughts on understanding stumbling blocks
Welcome to the writing practice. I hope I have given you some discipline ideas you can use or at least think about while you look at your practice. Find those stumbling blocks, understand them and get those words out there.
Patience Writer. It’s a mantra I use to remind myself in the middle of a project to relax and enjoy the trip. No skill is more needed by a writer than that of patience. It is not an easy one to learn. We often feel an urge to surge ahead so we rush ourselves only to slip and fall. We forget to keep our basics in play.
There are some helpful things we can do to develop more patience. It is a bitter pill to swallow but the results satisfy the soul. We are most fortunate that patience is a learnable skill.
Know your enemy…impatience.
Our world today is a breeding ground of impatience. We have such convince in everything from buying our clothes to getting a fast answer on Google. Instant gratification rules us all. The only cost our ability to deal with the realities time imposes on us.
Go on line or look at any media ad. What do we see? Ads and claims that we can achieve any goal in just a few minutes and with no other cost than the program, pill, or some secret. Do you really think you can actually “Lose 10 inches in 10 days”? If you do, will you be happy with the results? Have you considered your answer there? Is it limited? Did you think about what your next step might be to maintain them for that answer?
Such is the comeuppance of impatience. We often miss the entire picture just for one tidbit promise that is more often fleeting than not. The frequent cost is despair and more frustration.
The Writing! Get on with the Writing!!!!
Sounds somewhat familiar, doesn’t it? That’s the sound of my own inner voice when I want to get the point of my writing. I want to get to the meat of the matter right away. It’s a good thing that writing does not allow me that luxury. No one would understand what I am talking about without some kind of introduction and a general form to follow in the argument. Writing demands patience. I have my montra to remind me too. “Patience Writer.”
The fact is every writer is under attack, mostly from within, to write faster, write more and get published. We cannot wait to see our names in print or even see that direct deposit from our client. We want it all now.
The waiting is the hardest part.
One of the hardest things to do for a writer is to wait. We need to wait for a blog proposal to be accepted, a journal editor to accept our submission, or a book publisher to approve of our manuscript. It is not uncommon to hear a writer say they would rather have a quick no over a personalized rejection in a couple of months.
That kind of a mindset is almost a crime that will only slow the writer’s development over the long term. A personalized rejection like that will give the writer a better perspective on his piece and skills. Such honest evaluations are essential for real development as a writer. Skipping this for a lack of patience is a disservice to yourself.
I am not saying you should wait for everything. I am saying that you should be more grateful when you do wind up waiting at some point. You will not get some insightful answer every time, but those you do get can really improve your game. That gain is always worth the wait for a writer with patience.
Learn patience writer
Patience takes practice. Patient writing is not any different. That means you will need to let things mature as you go along. I have found a few things do help with developing patience. Yes there are small hacks you can do to move through the process. Not really speed things up, it’s more like what they taught us in the Marines for swimming. “Slow is fast in the water.” That’s because when we swim we fight the water and sink instead of just pushing our buoyant bodies forward.
Purposefully approach your work with the mindset that you are going to let the writing process outside your control is not your concern. Focus instead on consistent and regular writing habits that you can control. For instance getting your pages done today. Publishing your blog’s post or getting that spec article for the portfolio written and uploaded.
Distract yourself habits. One habit you can really use is to check your email just once or twice a day for a very limited time. This also applies to texting and social media as well. You do have people you want to hear from other than your client or publisher. When you limit your time looking for responses, you open more time to think about and do other things. For instance instead of worry over your newest submission, you could just move on to your next project. Ship and then get back to work and life. There are other things to do with your time than just wait for a response, even a fast one.
Be a Salesman.
Awhile back in college I worked schlepping vacuums cleaners door to door. I learned a lot in that time even though I did not really rack up large volumes of cash doing it. In fact I had a manager who was always killing my sales because he was focused on getting cash only deals while all the ones I could find were payment types. From his perspective it was a loosing deal because a cash deal was always paid immediately while the payment program required a waiting period for the commission to be paid and a replacement vacuums to be sent.
I complained of the situation to a more experienced salesman on the team who pointed out that sales was much like life. You had to get through all of the no’s to find the yes’s. “Always look for the no’s.” My boss was just focused on a different set of no’s than I was. In some ways he was more patient than I at the time. He knew the yes’s would come. He just had to get through all of the no’s first. To do that he needed people with stock on hand available to get those to those yes’s as fast as possible.
Writing rejection works the same way. If we waste our time or take too many stupid hacks trying to speed things up because we lack patience, then we lose the time to get the next project or work on said project with less than the total focus and skill we should. Either way we suffer more over all because we are waiting for responses instead of keeping our efforts moving forward.
Patience in writing is an active process. You get stronger the more patient you choose to become. To be patient you let the things you do not control do their thing and you become more focused on what you do. Write more. Read more. Practice. Allow yourself to fail, so that you can get up for more practice. Be active in your patience.
Enthusiasm discipline two writing strategies that work. They are great in fact. The trouble with all that enthusiasm starts with a burst of energy and good will but it does not have the staying power to keep a large project going beyond a day or two. It fizzles as the project becomes a slog. It is when you hit the slog that you find who has discipline and who does not. Of the two you need discipline more.
That’s not to say you don’t need enthusiasm. You do. Enthusiasm can get you off your duff and jumping out the door. It’s the starter. You need it, but it is different from discipline both in how you use it and how you fix it. All too often we confuse the two. Then wind up using the wrong solution for the problem. Today we will look at what both are.
Opposing Forces
Enthusiasm and discipline are not really opposing forces as writing strategies go. If anything they are the forces we use to create things and move mountains. We get a charge from our enthusiasm. It propels us forward to try. Discipline is our inner force to start and stay with a given task till it is done. They are really our why and how. Without both we will drop to the ground never to know what it means to fly.
How we use them.
Quite a few people miss the point that these two traits do in fact work together because they fail to see how they actually work or even which one they are dealing with. Some even think that one of them is not really all that necessary.
Two Stances
In my research I ran across an artist who sees discipline as inferior to enthusiasm. She went to such an extent that she suggested running away from anyone arguing that discipline is a needed element in any art’s tool kit, or any other creative for that matter be they writer, performer or business builder.
To be fair, I have seen some sources that see discipline alone as the only universal one size fits all tool you will need to get your work done. I really cannot blame a panicked artist for their take since there are many who focus on discipline sans enthusiasm.
Feedback Loop
There is a reason though for that focus on discipline. Discipline is about the only way to develop anyone to high enough level in a given filed that enthusiasm will have any real power for them. Humans gain enthusiasm for what they like, which more often than not is something they feel they are good at on some level. The reality is that discipline is reinforced by enthusiasm and in turn this provides a discipline feedback loop to the enthusiasm. We can see that loop in the form of the end results it provides.
More Enthusiasm
There are those who argue that enthusiasm rules over discipline because they think it will not get you very far. They tend to see self-discipline as joyless and cold. What they miss is that there are literally millions of enthusiastic people in the world who never write, draw, paint, sculpt, perform, or create anything. In fact they have more than enough joy and enthusiasm for the task, but they lack the control and direction that discipline brings to the table.
Disciplined Works
The disciplined artist or writer gets to their work regularly instead of spending time on Facebook, binge watching Netflix, spending time with the guys and gals at the bar a little too often, or any number of a million other distractions. While it’s true those enthusiastic folks love their work, the trouble is they don’t love it enough to discipline themselves to actually do the work. So they wind up puttering around with it on the weekends that lead to dozens of unfinished and never started projects. Discipline is what Steven King uses when he argues for the need to finish any given draft in a season.
Discipline Stands with Enthusiasm
This is not to say you should not love your work. In fact one of the most prolific writers of all time Isaac Asimov said you should love your work. He was right. Love of the work, enthusiasm, will drive your work. You need it.
Disciplined to Quit
However, Asimov like all writers had a problem with writing. At times his brain just did not give him all the answers he needed on a given piece of work. His solution was to be disciplined enough to know when to let the work go for a bit, then come back later when his mind had had the time to work things out.
The thing to remember here is that Asimov was highly disciplined. When he was stuck on a given project, he did not just walk away from writing completely. He planned for being stuck at times. That’s when he chose to work on another project that he did have solutions for till his mind could sort things out. This is the reason he had so many typewriters about his office and house, each all ready setup with its own work already in process. This is discipline taken to a very high standard.
Other Productive Writers
Asimov is not the only writer to use this kind of self-discipline. Many highly productive creative writers have multiple projects in play at any given time. That’s really why they are so productive. Multiple projects allow the writer to use our most valuable commodity of time with the greatest economy and outcome both in volume and quality. If you stop writing on a given project to give your subconscious time to work things out but lack the discipline to work on another idea that’s ready to go in your head, then while you may be freed to go cavort about in the hills, that story or article is going to have to wait till you get the stuff in front of it out.
That greatly decreases the chances of what might have proved a brilliant masterpiece ever seeing the light of day. It takes discipline to ensure that your valuable creation time is not wasted on sideline items that denies your inner artist their chance to create.
When they are just not clicking.
There are many times when you will not click with what you are doing. There are just two choices. You can slog till you break through or quit for a time to let the water settle a bit. Both can and do work, but the trick is you have to know when to do which.
To know which to choose you have to know if it is an enthusiasm problem or a discipline problem. The important thing to keep in mind here is that you are facing a problem, not some break in you or a sign you have no skill. Problems are a just problem, which means they also have solutions. Work the problem and you will find the solution, but first you have to ask what problem discipline or enthusiasm.
Frankly most people will be able to tell instinctively most of the time. But, there are times that your own biases will get in the way. In the end it is just about getting the balance of the feedback loop working again.
Find the Joy
For an enthusiasm problem it is a matter of getting in contact with our why or just giving the brain a chance to chill with all the ideas it had. You can do this with some journaling around the idea, working on something else, or just taking a walk among the trees. Either way you will be able to work through the problem and your words will flow again.
Move in the Grind
For those times when your gut says slog, go for it. In the Marines the most valuable skill that is taught is how to be miserable. We learn to love the grind because of it. We focus on the movement and the grind itself as we let the hump just slide under our feet. Motion is the answer. It takes away our ability to over think things. Over thinking is very much the reason why you see baseball players strike out while you almost never see a tennis player miss a ball. The secret sauce is the fact that the baseball player cannot move, but the tennis player can.
In fact movement ensures the results. Moving prevents the tennis plaer from focusing on hitting the ball and over thinking the process because they are focused on their feet. Meanwhile the major league baseball player can only think about hitting the ball. He cannot help but over think things. In fact he has time to think about a lot of things on the road to Yips land. Pitchers and catchers know this. That’s why pitchers take their time to throw and the catcher often talks smack to get in a batter’s head.
To Write is to Grind
Grinding works much the same way with writing as with a long hump. If you can remove your focus for what you are saying to something else, such as typing accurately, then you can get out of your own mind’s way and let the words flow where and how they come out.
Sometimes no amount of time away will fix the problem like slinging stuff left and right till you are just about blind. We grind then we can rest and go back to edit and cut with the same voracious appetite till we have a clearer idea of the piece we want. It’s much like sculpting clay. We build a general form then cut and smooth away the stuff that is not the shape we want.
Long Term Projects
Things get different when we look to optimize our enthusiasim and discipline for better and longer term performance. Short term hacks will work but over the long term you need a better strategy, one what will feed both your enthusiasm and strengthen your discipline.When you are working as a professional with a deadline with less than interesting material there are some ideas you can use to keep enthusiastic over the writing itself and not just the need for a paycheck. Though, that fact has been quite inspirational for many working writers for centuries. The key here is to make the work interesting. I have found that blogging gives up some great ideas that are useful for other forms of writing.
Look for new angles. Use a clever metaphor for the frame work or flip the advice to tell people how not to be successful.
Use some form of writing constraint for the piece. For instance refuse to use a given vowel or word in the piece. This will stretch you a bit and work the vocabulary.
Get really focused on the reader. Someone is going to read this. Make this bone dry stuff as clear and direct as possible for that person. Creating a clear and uncluttered work is the hallmark of a master writer.
A plan works better than hitting a blank wall.
You can avoid crashing to a great degree by creating your own set of habits and rituals that work around your over thinking mind. Five habits to have in play for your daily work are:
Build your work into your day.
For writing to work consistently it needs to be a part of your larger routine. That routine has to be geared to support your work with time as well as the physical, mental and emotional energy to do it. Much in the same way your daily system will get you to work on time and ready to work instead of being late and tired because you only got five hours of sleep, skipped breakfast and forgot to do your laundry this last week
Use a warm up routine.
Letting your brain know it’s time to work and possibly what you will be doing are two great ways to ease your way into a productive writing session. Here are some ideas to try.
Journal
Journal about what you are going to write on or create a mind dump of everything that pops into your head of things you need to do, have done or want to do right now. Either way primes and clears that mental deck.
Eat
Get some coffee or tea, maybe a light meal. A little food is good to get chugging, but keep it light. A heavy meal has the opposite effect.
Re-read Yesterday’s Work
Re-read what you wrote yesterday. A variation of this is to stop at the end of your writing day and take a moment to write down your next step or part you will write/edit/etc…The idea is to remind yourself where you are and what you need to work on so the mind can get to work when you come back.
Research Review
Review your research, beat sheet or foolscap outline. Spend some time thinking about your theme. This serves a double purpose since many writers don’t really know their themes till they are well into the writing process, sometimes not even then. More time spent working on the book will make will solve this problem and generate some ideas for what you do want to write.
Meditate
Meditation is also a great way to train the mind to focus while clearing the mental decks. It’s a great one two tool to get ready for today and to strengthen yourself for tomorrow.
Be prepared.
Know that your brain and life are going to play tricks on you to get you out of the chair. Don’t fall for it. Get your pages.
What is Writing?
Have a broader view of what writing is. A lot of people tend to think that all that you do to write is just put words on paper, or as Paul Gallico wrote:
“It is only when you open your veins and bleed onto the page a little…”–Confessions of a Story Writer 1946.
That’s a great metaphore, but not even close to the reality case. There several stages in writing. The least noticed are the preparation, the edit and rewriting stages.
Lore
The writing lore seems to leave people with the vision of some genius pounding keys and cranking out pages by the fist full. Even those writers like Jack London who wrote Call of the Wild in less than a month with such skill that the editors could not make any major changes to the manuscript still had to pass through the other unseen stages.
Reality
The reality is you need to have your homework done, read research, and at least an idea of what you are going to write to some degree before you sit-down. That can be as much as three read books and complete out line with character sketches or as little as a story outline from a classic book and the two main characters. Pressfield started with this for “The Legend of Bagger Vance”.
No matter where you are in the process, you have to start with an understanding of both where you are and what you need to do next.
What about just sitting down at the computer to pants it, but you are a total blank? Take a step back and asks what is this about? What am I missing? Go from there.
Timers are your friend.
Use a timer to write in short periods to help focus the mind, whetehr you know what you are going to write about or don’t. Most of the times I have used vary from five to twenty-five minutes. Training your mind to work in a limited time helps your mind sort through the crud faster and get to the point without much force of will power on your part. When the time is up you can take a break, take off for the day, or even start another round.
There is always a why, just ask.
What is the reason why what you are writing is hard? That is because it is hard or you don’t know something. Time to work the problem. You are not lazy or lacking discipline or have no willpower. It is just a problem to solve, so be nice to yourself and ask why you are struggling to get the words. Look for the real hang-up. You just might need to let things process or take a nap or maybe you really need to spend time with your spouse. Take care of those things then come back and hit it.
More Enthusiasm
You will also want to keep that enthusiasm up. Just like a plant you have to water it a little regularly. Here are some ideas on how to do that:
Play around a bit.
We tend to be most enthusiastic was children, so getting back in touch with that kid is going to have some positives for your personal energy levels.
You can daydream a bit about your child hood or your past in general when you were more child-like through your journals, photos, or even just your daydreams. The point is to connect with the feelings you had back then to be enthusiastic.
Interview yourself as if you are a book character. Ask about fears, loves, who they trust, who they don’t, etc…
Get off the couch and do something that moves you into your body. Build, craft, play games, roll around on the floor like you used to.
Gratitued Practice
Take some time to work through painful or repressed emotions and practice some gratitude. There’s a great meditation call the 6-Phase Meditation that used one of the phases to call to mind some slight you might still feel angry about and forgive it. Another phase calls for you to feel gratitude for things in your life. Processes like this are great for releasing those mental blocks and can aid writers clear their mental decks. Choosing to leave the pain behind while reinforcing the positives in our lives helps keep the mind balanced and relieves much of our daily stress.
Take a Nature Bath.
Studies have shown that reconnecting with the natural world around us grounds us. For many, including myself, much of our childhood was spent outdoors running around and playing. It is one of the key areas we connect with our inner joy and enthusiasm. Immersing ourselves in nature is as easy as taking a walk. The Japanese go so far as to recommend taking a Treebath, walk in a forest, regularly to cleanse the soul. Even some house plants and watching some nature shows help.
Spend Time with Success
Go look at some of your previous work or someone else’s work. Sometimes you forget that you have done things before. Reacquainting yourself with your younger self’s writings can remind you of what you are capable of. You can also take some time to read other people’s work too. A good story can fire the imagination. Use those memories and that to fire your own imagination.
Last Words
The thing to remember with discipline and enthusiasm is that they are not in opposition. They are very much dependent on each other to survive. If the words are just not coming, take some time to find out which is stuck and how best to move the two back into a supporting flow.
Start a Morning Writing Routine. One of the easiest times s to fit your writing into is first thing in the morning. Mornings tend to be the quietest and least filled chunks of time we have in our schedules
Mornings are also the time we have the most will power and energy to ensure that those things get done. This is critical when dealing with something that requires both new habits and your current habits prevent. Most people have effectively used mornings for a verity of improvements including working out, making the bed, or writing. Morning routines set us up for a much easier win with a very difficult goal. This is the prime reason so many experts praise using that time for getting things that are important done.
Writer’s Mornings
Since we are writers here, I am going to attack this from a writer’s perspective. Every writer is different and we have our own elements that we want in the routine. The main thing to remember is there is a way to go about setting yourself up so that at the end of the day your writing habit produces pages. If you set up a routine that does not produce pages, either directly from the practice or as a result of the practice, then you are making an error somewhere. Correct it. Anything in your routine must support and improve your writing.
This is a rough outline of my routine. The purpose is not to show you what I do so much as the process I use to build my mornings and the why I use each part. Some people will change things around or even eliminate things bases on their own lives and what works for them. That is totally fine. The point here is to see how we put together a routine that works and why it works.
Realistic Expectations
Two things to remember. One. If anything does not work for you, ignore it. Find what does. Two. Try some of the ideas that look like they will not work for a week or two. You might change your mind. Three. You are not married to your routine. Times change. You change. Things move in and out of your life. These life changes will change what you can fit in, when you want start your routine, and how you want to go about your routine. Do not think that you have to have the exact same routine for ever. You won’t. No one does really. Our routines are an ever adapting facet of life. It would be crazy to set unrealistic routines in play that do not match with your life and goals.
Set Routine Goals
That brings me to part one. Know what you want to achieve with your routine first. Since we are discussing writing, I am going to start with that. This same practice can also help setup an evening or afternoon writing period as well.
In my life I have had a lot of routines since my mother started packing me up for first grade. Over my child hood I tended to just fit whatever school needed into my mornings or what my mother told me to. I did not plan how to use my mornings. The closest I came was getting up at six in the morning to watch Saturday morning cartoons. Even that was not very complicated.
In high school I just added some hint for a time, then later dropped it. Most did not last very long. The longest was a quick set of push ups and squats in the morning because a coach said I was a good idea. I dropped it when I hit college to swim laps, then I had an early class and changed it to riding my bike to class, dropped it to walk to a part time job, and so on… This was not really planning my morning so much as just responding to what the world threw at me.
Planning
When we plan our mornings we choose specific goals that the mornings set us up to attain. We set those specific goals up because they are important to us, not just what sounds like a good idea or is the requirement for the environment we are in. For instance in the Marines we had the morning habit of PT every day, but it was more the result of a need for able bodied Marines in combat by the Corps rather than a conscious choice of anyone. Any benefits for us was purely a bonus.
Concious Commitment
A writer wants to make a conscious commitment to their work. That’s why we have to know our why as we go about the process. The first step is to decide what you want out of your mornings. Some questions to start.
Are you running a blog?
Then you are likely looking to get an article up regularly. The frequency of those articles will change how much time you will need to write your posts. You also need to consider time down for rewriting and the back end work like keywords.
Are you a novelist?
Ask when is your deadline for your rough draft or the final draft with the editor? Are you doing some of your research as part of your writing? Your world is different than a blogger. Your form is longer and your deadlines are too. Where as some bloggers might crank out a thousand complete words a day and publish immediately, most novelists don’t do that. I don’t even think Asimov at his fastest did that. So while a blogger can easily set up a productive routine that covers all the process every day, a novelist’s days can change a lot more often.
A caveat to that is something similar to what I do. I just write my rough drafts first thing in the mornings and do all the prep work, editing and rewrites at other times. This works for me. Your methodology is going to be different.
Are you a copywriter?
How many words do you need to crank out this month? What are your client deadlines? What types of copy are you doing? Do you write all of your stuff between 9 am and 5 pm in an office? Your morning routine will likely be more aimed at clearing your mind for the day and energizing the body in preparation for the slog ahead of you instead of cracking out words.
Every writer will have some different uses for the time. The great thing about every well developed morning routine is that they help every writer write better.
How I Flow
Once you have consciously chosen your aim, it’s time to look at what a morning routine can look like.
Countdown Launch
A morning countdown starts my morning routine from pillow. I picked this up some time ago to beat the urge to hit the snooze button. It works. No routine, no matter how amazing is going to do anything if you are not out of bed with enough time to do it. Counting down does that.
The countdown is simple. When your eyes open count down from five to zero. On zero, I substitute the word ‘launch’ for a little mental boost, jump out of bed, plant your feet shoulder width apart and throw your fists into the air as you say aloud, this can be softer to not awaken anyone still sleeping, “This is going to be a great day.” Even if you don’t feel all that great set your your mind toward the positive. It will give you a little more resiliency. If I am still a little sluggish when I makeup I do roll up out of bed instead of a jump but I still stand up immediately, plant my feet with a little jump at the end.
The reason why I do this is because if you can get your feet on the floor, you are less inclined to lie back down in bed than you would if you were sitting up or worse still lying in bed. Yes there will be days you do not want to get up or you dawdle. Slow is fine. The point is to advance far enough that returning to bed is not really an option for you.
There is also something about landing on your feet first thing and standing in this power pose that really helps move the energy levels up.
Move and Clean
Next up is a short period of physical movement and a short hygiene routine. The PT is a short 10 to 20 minute plan. I have used quite a few different approaches from burpees to kettlebells. I tend to hedge on the minimalist side. The programs I have used over the years included the Royal Canadian 5-BX program to the Tibetan Rites. The point is to do some exercise that gets the blood moving. Also, I prefer also to keep the noise to a minimum as well since I am working out at the foot of the bed and do not want to wake my wife.
Hygeen
Once the sweat hits, I need a shower and this is a perfect time to get a cold shower and to brush my teeth. The cold water clears the salt and sweat off and brings up the energy factor a little more. Brushing your teeth is another energy booster that stimulates your gums. I can attest this is like drinking cup of coffee on the alertness scale.
Make Bed
By this time my wife is up for her routine, so I make the bed as I get dressed. That means button down shirts and jeans or Dockers, because I am telling my mind that I am shifting to writing mode. I want a more professional mindset than PJs or workout gear might provide. I allow myself a little free spirit mode because I stay barefooted. It’s morning time not office time. I want creativity. Shoes are for office hours. Again I am playing with my mind and ramping it in a given direction. I want to be more of a pantser type writer here rather than a plotter.
To the Desk
On the way to my desk, I grab some water or even a cup of black coffee. Hydration is one of the most missed elements in the morning. Our bodies are mostly water and you dehydrate while sleeping. More so if you are like me and have worked out or gotten a quick walk in. You think better with water than without. In the Marines we chugged a full quart first thing before chow. Water does wake you up, helps you think and even helps prevent nasty issues like heat stroke.
Clean Thinking
The first thing I do when I sit down is clear my head with some stream conscious writing. I write out my Morning Pages. In general we are talking three handwritten pages of whatever comes to mind. This includes anything from your day’s work to your mind wondering when will this thing end. I put it all down. The purpose is to get the mindless chatter out of my head so I can focus for the writing ahead and for the rest of the day. I even find some really good ideas pop up too.
Writing Mode
Now I shift into writing mode. I grab a little writing motivation and direction, I use Steven Pressfield’s writing books for this. The chapters are like a page long but they always get me in the mood to write. After, I say my writer’s invocation which is the opening of Homer’s Odyssey that I got from Pressfield and set my timer for 25 minutes. This tell my higher mind that it is show time. I get to work.
I write across several different areas ad copy, blogs, and fiction. My first session of the day is always what ever novel I am working on. I write like I did in high school long hand in black Bic Crystal ink and a spiral notebook.
Writing Results
Again all of the process is aimed at getting as much done as possible in a short time. I act with the idea that things like the muse will show up because I am there. The timer limits the amount of time I have and forces my mind to think rather than stall. I use the pen and paper because it reminds me of the happiness I had in school scribbling short stories and the crazy project I thought of as my novel. I use everything I can think of to get the words on the page…no waiting. Also, NO editing, corrections, or changes of any kind. What I put down stays like watercolor painting. Additions only make a mess. Leave it move on. This is all rough draft time. I just get what comes to me down. Editing is for later.
Writing For Reps
Depending on the amount of time I have, I might do one or two more sessions, but I always get up and walk about for a few minutes to just let the mind have a break.
Just Walk Away
After I get the words down, I walk away. I do not try to immediately fix anything. I let the material settle and percolate a bit. Allowing my mind to work deeper saves much grief. I don’t work with the material I have written till at least later in the day. I prefer to let it build longer though, like three or so days before I look at it again.
As for writing in general I use the same method to walk away in my other writing too. It works. Skipping it entirely is also a big mistake. No one should ever skip a second look. The main thing is to not do it too soon. Both editing immediately or skipping straight to publishing are just recopies for disaster.
Coming back to the rough will bring more work, one or ten rewrites lay ahead, but shaping it is far easier since you will likely be using the best stuff you mind could come up with. That’s for later. Now my pages and my morning routine are done.
Morning Done
There you go. My basic morning flow routine. Now it’s your turn. Choose the parts that work for you. Add what you think works for you. Go for a morning walk instead of a workout or skip it if you warm up better just jumping to the writing itself first thing cup of coffee or tea in hand. The point is to choose what you will do on your terms in your way with purpose. You morning routine should have a purposeful intention behind it.
Last point
A morning routine is meant to remove stress and add to our lives. It should simplify how you achieve what you do while it allows you, your higher self, to come through on the pages. Taking charge of your mornings and your craft first thing in the day is one of the best things you can do for your writing.
Leadership praise first. I first came across that idea in the Marines. It’s a solid way to deal with issues. Recently I’ve been working through Chet Scott’s Becoming Built To Lead and found the same idea. I’ve found Scott’s book to be a journey in a book that provides you with daily lessons in discipline to guide your path to mastering the art of living. I just chanced to find it while looking for a good book on self-leadership. This book has not been a disappointment. I could use a lot more work on myself. It is one of the better tools I have run across. Scott is quick to point out “I am a work in progress.” He has a wonderful way of showing one where to look to find where you need to work. I recently reached Scotts lesson on self-talk came with a bit of a twist. He summed the entire talk up in one word…Praise.
Praise
Scott sees praise as one of those things we both greatly crave. Yet, all too often we are sadly lacking any kind of praise from the most important source to us all. We all love the praise we get from our leaders, coaches and team mates when we are in the thick of it in training or on the field. We drink in the praise we get from friends and family as we go about our lives.
The trouble is that we don’t really have these folk there often. None of those folks are present with us when we actually do our best work or need some praise when we need a boost. Most of the time we work out there all alone.
Even if they are there, we are doing good if they just say ‘good job out there’ much less notice enough to give us some feedback at the end or aid us to build our confidence. That’s not that they are ignoring us. Everyone can be distracted. It takes very little for that something else to totally overwhem our awareness so that we miss the event.
Sad as it is, it is not?
The most important mental element in our effort to build confidence and strength of character is praise. All too often we get wrapped up in the big wins and the need for praise in those times. It tends to be the only thing we think about for both ourselves and those we are supposed to support. Though, we remember to do it with babies.
Praise the First Steps
How many people make time to praise their children when they take their first steps or learn to roll over? It’s virtually a universal sport. Yet once we advance beyond those years we forget that the little wins that are still so important for our own and those we lead’s development. The most important time to praise is found in the baby steps. With the major wins is fantastic but the little wins happen far more often than a major win or performance. Many more moments to get the confidence and strength building praise in. Remember going slow is a really good thing.
Good Leaders Praise
A good leader gets the praise in early and often. Praise for good work is the big thing that is remembered. That’s the essential job of any leader. But what of ourselves? The one witness to all of our wins and losses is us. We see it all. Yet, our own voice is not there to speak up. We are more often inclined to let our minds replay our film real of misses than speak of how we gave our best job. Real criticism can be good, but to be good it has to be aimed more for what will make us better, not ruthlessly critical and destructive. Honesty is a just act. If you did not get your heart into the game, admit it, but find out what is off that you need to fix too. Then fix that. First though praise what you did right.
Inner Voice
It’s the inner voice that we hear the most often when we perform. We hear it first and last. We need to remember to praise ourselves for the hard work in the moment when we do well, to know that we have done our best. The thing to keep in mind is the best praise comes from our performance itself. It’s a biofeedback loop rewards us for having done the work.
This is why the work itself is its own reward. We get back what we put in. Even a poor performance is still a performance. You will get something back for the work itself.
Look for the wins first. Find it. Celebrate that little win, even if it is just the fact that you showed up and hung in the game for another day. Take it. It’s a win. We can always find the time to evaluate the work for improvement later.
Praise then constructive criticism
One thing that has occurred to me that every coach, leader, parent, friend, and of course ourselves should have in play is the order of praise and criticism. In the Marines leaders always praise first, then criticize. In many cases it also best to leave the criticism for later when you can better judge the call without so much of the emotion and adrenaline running through everyone’s veins. We should remember to do that to ourselves the most.
Saving your criticism for later is one way to help the biofeedback do it’s job to build your confidence and feed your soul first. A bit of time allows you to gain more from a constructive look at the problems instead of just ripping through yourself in the anger of the moment. If you need it, schedule your criticism for later and keep the meeting with yourself, but focus on the wins. This has proven the best way I know of to keep that biofeedback loop working.
Inside Leadership
Our internal ledership is the most essential tool. I have found we get our personal biofeedback loop off line because we look to outside leadership instead of the internal leader within. That leaves us withou leadership more often than not. When we do turn on our internal voice we are too critical when we should be more celebratory. Remember there is a time to celebrate and build up. That time is for the performance.
My Take
In the end it is our self-praise that is most important for our confidence and our level headed self-evaluations guide us the best without the flow of emotions. The point is to not put the two together or in the wrong times. Praise in the win, especially the small ones. Plan a time to be critical of your performance after the emotions are gone and you can see it more clearly to make better calls on what you need to do. You will be a fairer judge of things and fix more.
The bottom line is praise. It is often the forgotten element.
Clean thinking your writer’s calendar? Is that even possible?
I have seen hectic days and totally boring days. There are different kinds of problems with both. In the end both kinds of days reach the same conclusion. You windup producing very little, if you get anything productive done at all.
There is a solution for this. Clean up your calendar. Easier said than done. Far more needs to go into this than just some cutting here and there. Getting your calendar to the point there is a clear and concise focus to your days is not easy. I still work at this and am still learning. So take your time. Work in small chunks to implement your ideas.
Good thing that my first step is to:
Evaluate where you are now
Seems too simple, but almost every organizational thought process I have ever come across that has worked has started with this first step. You have to know where you are. Knowing that helps you figure out what to move around, limit, or cut.
There are two parts to this first step.
1. Know your values
Values will give you a campus to work from. This part is all about asking what is it you want, what do you believe, what are your goals, and what are the whys for it all.
If this sounds like a lot it is. The fact is you are either going to shape up your thinking for what you want, believe and value or you are going to find your calendar filled with what everyone else wants. Then you get to continue to bounce along for the ride as your time continues to control you. Locking down your own thinking gives you control.
Your control comes give you the ablity to use the one key word that everyone, especially a writer or any other creative type, should be able to use easily, painlessly and even joyously…No.
This most essential word allows writers the time and peace of mind to get the thoughts in (research), processed (mental thinking space) and out through the rampant typing and editing of words. To be followed by publication, delivery or Ship It!
2. Inventory your schedule, both written and unwritten.
We are now going to move to a spreadsheet, calendar, paper or your cell planner. If you have been working from any calendar instead of winging it, you already have some data, which will help. But everyone should go through and list out exactly how their time has been spent in the last week or two.
You can just rely on memory here to jump start your data if you don’t have any, but everyone should still take the next week or two to collect fresh data on how you are actually using your day now. The rules are simple. Write down everything you do and the time you spend on it.
There are also some…
Watch out for anything you do while you are supposed to be doing something else. Note what it is and about how long it took to deal with it. This step exposes unscheduled problems, time wasters, focus issues, and so on. Knowing what is slowing down your work is a good way to find good solutions for the problems.
For instance, you are supposed to be doing your financial books for about two hours. But you find that you got distracted by the kids checking their homework, YouTube had a great video for the historic period you are writing on, and you got hungry so had some homemade cookies that you whipped up. Not really a surprise that your three hour project got turned into six and you are still only half way done now?
Watch you non-scheduled use…
One of the biggest things to cover when you are working through this process is to make notes of what you are using your nonscheduled time for too. You are not just going to find things you might want to cut down on or eliminate. For instance cutting the time you are binging The Floor is Lava Season Two for the fifth time in three weeks. You will also find other things you want to keep, such as horror movie with homemade desert night with your daughter and son.
Scheduling is about adding to your life’s quality, not just taking things out.
Step Two: Purge to create more space.
For this step you have to know importance and urgency. Your values are going to tell you this. You are always going to have a mix of both in life, but we can make sure the less important things in life are not allowed to drown out the more important and valuable things. If you are a writer then we are talking writing, family, care of self, income (likely not to be writing at the start) and other things. These things bounce around a bit thanks to urgency.
Now look through the data you have. Look for things provide no value to you or anyone important in your life. Ask yourself questions about the time usages and the tasks themselves.
Am I doing things that no one uses? Can I outsource this? Can I skip this? Does this have to be done every week on Monday or can I cut that back to once every six months or even delete it entirely? Is this duplicating my work over here? Can bunch all these tasks in one block of time?
Everything that can be purged is purged. Start with reoccurring meetings and repetitive tasks to get some momentum. No regrets.
Now we prioritized and reorganize.
Look at how your work is done. Block your work into time chunks so you can work on like items in batches. That would be like writing up all three of your blog posts for next week over six hours on Monday. Doing all your calls for an hour in the early afternoon. The goal is to eliminate bouncing around in your mind from focus to focus. You do not want to multi-task in these chunks.
Prioritize your work according to its value for you, realistic requirements on your time and the level of urgency for the work.
Cuts
Work to remove any excess time padding you use to cover your projects. Work seems to expand to fill any extra time we give it. Set earlier deadlines and work to meet or beat them. Don’t stress out if you don’t initially see a large change. Give it some time. You will see how much you might be over or under estimating the amount of time you need. The trick here is to beat the clock not fill the schedule. Do only that. Over time you will increase your level of efficiency and likely raise your work’s quality as well.
Outsource
Outsource or automate where ever you can to improve your position not to just cut time. Sometimes outsourcing or automation is not a good idea. You will need to look at the pros and cons. In general if you can save time for something more productive, save what it would cost you to do it, or better align you with your compus values, then there is a good chance it is a good fit. Otherwise, be cautious. You might be just trading work for more work or worse paying to do more work.
Your goal is to free up white space on the calendar so that your daily schedule is flexible enough for the inevitable fires happen while maintaining productivity without sacrificing things like personal time or your peace of mind.
That leads me to the last step.
Make sure you write in down time. Clear thinking with your calendar is not just about getting work done. It’s about how you spend your time. You want a life, not a work. Give yourself time with yourself, space for those you love, and room for the things you want to do. Like heading on to your next project…Finish Your Long Project In 11 Steps
Mind dump practices clear mental clutter. If your are in doubt, have you ever sat at your desk to find your mind is so full of ideas yet none of them have anything to do with the work you are trying to scribble down?
Maybe you are eighty pages deep into your project or you are less than ten from done when your mind is flooded with thoughts for house projects that need to be done, worry over finances or some issue within the family that needs to be ironed out. How about all those day job issues…?
Even small stuff like going over your to do list or getting done so you can go to the movies with the family tonight can loom large before your eyes. The distractions are everywhere and many have merit or not. That matters little since they are destroying your writing time with the certaintude of a nuclear strike.
So many things buzzing around in our heads tend to exhaust every ounce of energy you have while it crashes your project and wrecks your sanity at the same time.
Living with so much clutter in our heads tends to leave us all tired, stressed, and antsy…maybe even thinking about quitting for a nice easy calm job like test pilot or explosives expert.
We all go there from time to time because you just can not turn off the thinking machine that is your brain. It will not focus. You cannot change that. Or can you?
Steve’s “Clean Thinking”
Some time ago I ran across Steve Job’s idea to declutter your mind by “…work hard to get your thinking clean…”. Steve spent a great deal of his time looking at how to simplify things for better results, and thinking clean was one way he achieved those results.
That is a brilliant concept. When we think clean we stop over thinking simple things. Less time spent thinking in clouded circles means more time taking through the steps in a more direct course to our solutions. Taking more steps forward like this has enabled me to get more done with far less frustration and far more motivation. I am certain it can help you as well.
Set your tools at your finger tips to help clear your mental clutter
The old saw says that it is better to act than think too much. Steve believed the best process for that was to dump our thoughts down on paper. You only need a pen and paper, but I have also used Notepad to type through this process. The tool is not as important as getting things out of your head.
The process is simple. Write down everything you are thinking right now. The size or importance, whether it is a problem or a goal, silly or smart does not matter. You just want it out of your head. Get it down. Do not try to edit or change things. Go as fast as possible.
Avoiding the urge to correct things instantly is likely why some people like to use pen and paper for this. This is one strong reason to do it that way, but it’s also the reason I use Notepad instead or word processing programs like Word and Grammarly. I shun auto correction and live time error marking. The point here is to avoid correcting myself and just flow with it. I kick that inner critic, perfectionist and sensor to the curb.
The only rule here is whatever is in your head, get it out.
No waiting here, just write everything down that comes to mind for a limited time, like five to fifteen minutes or even say thirty minutes for larger practices like Morning Pages. You can also use a given number of pages. Three pages seems to be the max value. More than that tends to make you too self-engrossed. With the head cleared, we can we set to work on the project itself.
Many times I have found a solution in the mind dump process itself that I had not really considered before. Most of the time I don’t. That’s fine. Getting the answer in the Mind Dump is just a bonus. I am still more mentally clear and capable of focusing on just the project at hand instead of wasting so much time with other things. My focus is on the shot here and now.
Another way to go about this process is to make it in to a part of your dayly flow. Just before I get to work, I take about five minutes to scribble out the thoughts in my head. I also use the concept as a separate practice first thing with morning pages. The tool is adaptable. Choose what works for you. Run with it.
Problem meet solution
So, if all you have to do is just dump it, then what is the problem of stopping there? Often scale is the problem, so too is the fact that like all tools one size does not fill the bill for everything or everyone. That’s where journaling comes in. It gives you another tool to work with.
Our thoughts are like dust build up in our minds. We tend to collect a lot of them daily. If we do not do something with them they will float about in our heads till we fall to their charms or we do something about them. If we want to really focus, we have to clear some mental space to get in the zone. That means we need to deal with the head clutter, the office clutter and the calendar clutter in our lives.
Journaling Clutter
Psychotherapist Carolyn Koehnline uses journal therapy to clear out our clouded thinking. She defines clutter as :
“…any object, emotion, or commitment that drains energy or distracts us from priorities.” To deal with those issues she argues we need to “Make decluttering a transformational act“.
Physical Clutter
Objects themselves are the physical clutter we can easily see but do nothing with. They fill our space from basement to attic with manifestations of decisions or experiences we want to avoid. They create an internal conflict that can be anything from left over work reminders to relationship or grief issues. Koehnline’s solution is to make decluttering a joyful, sacred process. Her advice is to:
1. Use a Human Perspective
Make your objective meaningful in more human terms than just being free of the buildup. For instance spending time with your family or getting that book written and published. See the results in terms of how it will hold meaning and value to you.
2. Positive Focus
While working through the stacks of stuff, keep your thoughts more positive. Avoid the negative issues. Instead, when your energy slackens, remind yourself of your objectives. Use your journal for this if you like. We all need to be reminded that we are working to grow the space in our lives. Bigger picture thinking is very helpful in this process.
3. Pace is everything.
Like any long distance effort from running the 200 mile Dragon’s Back Race to running a blog, it’s easy to fall prey to weaker thinking in the process. Our thoughts pressing that we should be further ahead or that with this form we will never make it. The mental hack is to set a pace and trust it to carry you through to the end.
Your journal entries are a great useful tool for this. Those entries will remind you just how many miles you have already logged, where you are going and, likely are what you need the most at times useful road markers like where your next break is coming. Write in the small goals that can be checked off as completed.
4. Celebrate the large and small wins.
The small wins are hightly important to remember since they are more frequent than the big ones, so they are more useful for keeping our moral up. They also provide the feedback mile markers we all need to see our major project through.
My Thoughts
I use these tools regularly. They allow me to use a one two punch for where I am at at any given point. Clean thinking in a mind dump before my work day or when I need to refocus on a project is highly useful for getting to work and coming up with better ideas regularly. My moreing pages tend to get me through the run without as much slog or energy drain. Some journaling works me though my ideas in a different way than either of the other two. It saves my bacon when I need validation and fixes some feedback issues for me. It is also a great tool to think things through when I am stuck. More to the point. The day’s work gets done and I feel good about it. Give clean thinking a try.
