Welcome back to the Morning Writing Challenge Tips series.
Regardless of whether or not you’ve participated in the challenge, these tips are useful for building and sustaining a lasting writing practice.
Morning Writing Challenge Tips #9 & #10
Today I’m sharing two new tips, #9 & #10.
And here are today’s tips:
Tip #9: Create “sacred writing time.”
Now that you’ve had some experience with writing in the morning, I want to encourage you to create ongoing “sacred writing time” for yourself.
Sacred writing time is time you specifically set aside for writing each day, and nothing else. It’s an appointment you keep with yourself, and hold as highly important. You treat it the same way you would as if you had an appointment for a job interview or a meeting with an esteemed mentor. You wouldn’t dream of not showing up for those, right? The idea here is to mentally establish the value — the sanctity — of writing in your life.
Creating sacred writing time involves making both mindset and logistical shifts.
Sacred Writing Time Mindset
In terms of your sacred writing time mindset, this is about deeply internalizing how important writing consistently is to you. Your reasons may vary from mine. I encourage to reflect on this or even make your own list.
Here are some examples of why writing regularly is so important:
- It keeps us grounded in who we are as writers, even (especially) in difficult times.
- It helps us move our writing careers forward (if we’re not writing, we can’t produce or advance).
- It creates a sustainable path to developing and finishing work we can then put out into the world.
- It makes us happier; when we’re writing, we are more fully actualized, happier human beings. Which makes it good for us, sure, but ALSO for the people around us and the greater world.
- It fulfills our call to write. There’s nothing like writing regularly to help you know, in your bones, that you are a writer.
- It’s a way to say YES to yourself and your hopes, dreams, and desires.
Sacred Writing Time Logistics
In terms of practical applications, creating sacred writing time also involves some logistical considerations. Here are some things to consider implementing to help create sacred writing time in your life.
- Create regular appointments on your calendar dedicated to writing time. Don’t schedule anything else in those hours. No appointments, no errands, nothing.
- Let your household members know you’ll be writing within those hours and are not available for chatting, dealing with issues, etc. ALSO let them know when you WILL be available and make sure that’s true. If you tell them you’ll be available again after your writing time, be available then. Don’t keep writing, even if you’re in the flow. This lets them know they can trust you, and makes them less likely to interrupt you while you’re working.
- Similarly, let your close friends and family members who might expect fast responses from you via phone, text, email, etc. also know you’re not available during certain hours. Ditto on being available afterward.
- And, set limits with yourself, too. Using the tools I shared yesterday, block out distractions. You also have to keep yourself from interrupting your own writing time. No checking email, texts, etc. If you find yourself faltering, shore up your writing boundaries, and protect your sacred writing time like a mama lion protecting her cubs.
Having said this, don’t beat yourself up if you get off track. Learn from it, and start over the next day.
Putting this into practice: Consider writing out a list of reasons why writing regularly is important to you. :) When you write tomorrow morning, have a planned start time, and see how it feels to hold that time as sacred for just you and your writing.
Tip #10: Set yourself up for success.
Writing consistently in the long term is easier when you set yourself up for success. Something I’ve noticed as a fun side effect of the Morning Writing Challenge is that because I’m taking a picture of my writing spot each morning, I’m straightening up and getting all my tools ready before I begin. This makes it easier to get started.
I’ve also gotten in the habit of making sure whatever I’m going to be working on is the first thing I see when I come to my computer. For example, I’ll make sure I have my script file open on my laptop and the Forest App open on my phone even if I’m going to grab my cup of tea first. That way, when I come back and sit down to write, I’m far more likely to just dive into it than get distracted by anything else.
I’m reminded here about a story I came across about a man who wanted to stop watching so much TV and start reading more. He took the batteries out of his remote control and set them next to a stack of magazines. Every time he sat on the couch and reached for the remote control, he was forcing himself to make a choice: go to the trouble of putting the batteries in and succumbing to watching TV, or take the easier path to reading and fulfilling his true goal. (James Clear references this idea also in his book Atomic Habits, excerpted here.)
The idea here is to make it easier and easier to keep writing, and harder to do other things.
Here are some ways you might experiment with doing this:
- Keep your current writing files open on your computer at all times. (I make sure to save frequently though, and close them over the weekend so I’m certain my backups are happening).
- Strive to always know what you’re going to be working on tomorrow. If I’m in the middle of something when my writing sprint ends for the day, I’ll leave myself a note about where to pick up and what to do when I come back, right in the draft.
- Leave a “ragged edge” in your writing. When you finish with your day’s writing, it’s almost preferable to leave something undone, even stopping in the middle of a sentence. That way, your subconscious mind knows what it’s going to be picking up the next day.
- End on a high note. Rather than pushing to keep writing, even if you’re in the flow of writing, I recommend stopping when you planned to stop writing. Ending while you’re in place of flow and inspiration (rather than wrung out or exhausted) reinforces your energy for writing and makes it easier to come back to tomorrow.
- Aim to know what you’re going to be working on next. I typically have both daily, short-range, and long-term plans for my writing. I tend to focus on increments of work for my short-range goals, like completing the next 15 pages of my screenplay. In the longer term, I have a mental queue of which project I’ve got lined up to work on next. While I can always adjust it, it helps me to be tracking ahead into my future so I don’t get lost when I finish something.
- Strive to keep the gap between your writing sessions to no more than 20-24 hours, at least 5 to 7 days per week. The longer you go between writing sessions, the more resistance has time to build up, making it harder to write. Keep it shorter to make it easier to get right back to it. No warming up required. :)
- Always know when you’re going to start writing again, if you take time off for a day, weekend, trip, vacation, illness, etc. I take weekends off, which means I have a longer gap of 70-72 hours from Friday writing to Monday morning writing, so I make sure I’m committed to a writing sprint first thing Monday morning to keep me on track.
- Have a dedicated space (or spaces) for your writing. The more you regularly write in a specific spot, the more being there becomes a trigger for you to write.
- Consider using short writing rituals to spark your writing time, like lighting a candle, making a cup of tea or coffee, or reading an invocation aloud. (Even setting your timer counts!) These co-habits reinforce your writing rhythm and routine. This is a bit like always brushing your teeth before you go to bed. They just go together.
- Write in timed, group writing sprints, as we’ve discussed.
- Write while using distraction blockers, ditto.
Putting this into practice: What might you experiment with tomorrow morning? Is there anything on this list that speaks to you? Something else?
Cheers!!
Thank you for following along with the Morning Writing Challenge!
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