Work on Your Writing Habit

For the most part, writers work at home and have to be very self disciplined. There is no clock to punch at the beginning and end of the work day, there is no defined work day except the one the writer sets. To that end, it's very easy for life to get in the way of writing. Life always gets in the way: The phone rings, the kids need help, there are errands to run. The worst thing a writer can do is stop writing. One day turns into three which turns into a month.

Making writing a habit is one of the best things a writer can do. How do you create that habit? HG Nadel a writer explains this thoroughly here:

Set Your Own Daily Goals: Writers tend to look at the writing habits of other writers and become panicked when they cannot create those same habits. Writers write differently. To set yourself up to another writer does not help your writing. For some writers, it's going to be a set time limit five days a week. Maybe for you, it's three days a week. For some writers it's a set number of pages. Maybe for you it's one page and the rest is gravy. Maybe it's just the act of sitting down with pen and paper, for five minutes, regardless of the outcome. Unreasonable goals based on the writing habits of other writers, especially for writers starting out, are a set up for failure. Set a goal that works for you, that moves your writing forward and then keep at it.

Do whatever it takes to keep the goal: That's really the important part. The keeping of the goal. So what if the goal is only five minutes of writing in a journal without stopping. If you keep up that goal, every day, those words add up. It's much more productive than writing for hours once a month. Writers write consistently. Those five minutes will naturally and organically turn to ten and to twenty and so on.

Pick and Choose your Battles: Life gets in the way. It always will. It's probably unreasonable to say to your family, 'I'm writing for three hours now, don't bother me!' But it's not unreasonable to say 'today I'm writing, tomorrow I'm yours." Write with your children while they do homework. Give lots of notice if you want to do some intense writing. Treat a writing session like a night course - if you were going to have to leave the house to take a class, you'd have to make arrangements. Do the same with your writing.

Learn to work in unique places: This is the best way to maintain the habit of writing. Always carry a notebook with you so that five minutes of continuous writing can happen anywhere. Write while you wait to pick up your kids. Write while you're waiting to go into the doctors office. Write on the subway. Write on your lunch hour. Learn to write with background noise so it doesn't bother you. If you are stuck to finding the creative muse in one location, in one chair, at one time, it's going to be a lot harder to keep your writing consistent and habitual.

Accept all your words: One way writers fall out of the habit of writing is when they don't like what they're writing. They self censor, self criticize and suddenly it's two months later. Writing is not an instant by the numbers process. Words do not flow onto the page in perfect condition the first time round. Not every word you write has to be directly related to whatever project is in the works. The important thing is to get those words on the page on a consistent basis. Never stop writing, because the writing is not perfect. Accept all your words as part of the process.

Writing is no different than any other skill. You need to work at it. The more you work at it consistently, the more connected you become. Writing becomes more than a daily activity; it becomes a part of your life.
To read more, please visit here: https://hgnadel.wordpress.com