Can you name one thing that could harm your writing if you
do it—and if you don’t? Writing “routines” might not be the first answer to pop
to mind. But nothing affects our writing more than the routine (or
lack of one) with which we implement our writing into our day. Unfortunately,
if we don’t approach routines with just the right mindset, they can cause more
harm than good. Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of both routines
and the lack of them.
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| Sometimes writing routines can make us feel like hamsters in a wheel, and sometimes they can be just the thing to free our creativity. |
The Routine-I-Need-My-Routine
Approach
Some writers thrive on routines. These über-organized folks show
up at their desks at the same time every day (channeling Peter de Vries famous statement
that he writes “…when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine
o’clock every morning”), run through the same set of warm-up steps, use the
same pen and notepad, drink the same brand of coffee, and wear the same pair of
lucky socks.
The Pros of Routines
·Maximized
Productivity. The very essence of a daily routine means you’re going to be
writing daily. And the fact that you
have your routine organized into clearly established steps allows you to dispense
with wasting time and instead get right down to business.
·Enforced
Discipline. Routines encourage the discipline so crucial to any
successful writing career. If we expect to gain the aforementioned productivity,
we first have to show up at our desks every day and put words on paper.
Establishing a set routine limits your excuses for avoiding that desk and that
piece of paper.
·Sustainable
Habits. Writing is hard, no question about it. And the hardest thing about writing
is actually sitting down to do it. Those first words on a blank screen can be
torture. But the longer we maintain a habit, the easier it becomes
to keep maintaining it. Once you’ve shown up at your desk for ninety days
straight and written something every single one of those days, the more likely
you will be to sit down and write something on the ninety-first day.
The Cons of Routines
·Lack
of flexibility. The fixed nature of routines and the habits that result can
create an almost superstitious mindset in which we start believing we can’t
write anywhere but in our special corner of the coffee shop, with our special
purple pen, while listening to a loop of the first five minutes of
Beethoven’s 7th. Like Pavlov’s dog, these things condition us to
fall into the writing mindset. When suddenly the coffee shop closes down, our
pen runs out of ink, and our Mp3 player breaks, we can panic into believing we can’t possibly write without them.
·Lack
of spontaneity. Like the aids-turned-crutches listed above, our schedules
can also inhibit our spontaneity. If writing time is seven in the evening,
every evening, we can end up ignoring the spontaneous call of inspiration
earlier in the day. Maybe we’re struck with a brilliant dialogue exchange in
the middle of the afternoon. If we wait until seven to write it down, we may
well lose the freshness of the original idea.
·Dirty
socks. I’m not kidding. Those lucky socks get stinky fast.
The Routine-What-Routine?
Approach
Other writers probably wouldn’t recognize a routine if one ran them over in the street. These free spirits prefer writing wherever and whenever inspiration strikes. They don’t need special tools: a napkin or
scrap of wrapping paper will do the trick. As for lucky socks—pfft—who needs warm tootsies when the muse starts singing her siren
song?
The Pros of No
Routines
·Maximized
Productivity. Productivity can strike the non-routined just as often as the
schedule-happy among us. But it’s a different kind of productivity.
Instead of the enforced, write-every-day kind of productivity, here we get the
more uncontrollable but often more powerful bursts of spontaneous
write-when-and-wherever-inspiration-strikes productivity. If you’re inspired at
three in the afternoon, write now
before you lose the inspiration or the oomph to write.
·Mental
elasticity. The less reliant we are on our physical surroundings or stimuli,
the less likely we are to talk ourselves out of writing when everything’s not
just how we like it. The house is a mess because of a remodeling job? Write in
the midst of the sawdust. A sick child interrupts your scheduled writing time?
Write while he’s in the tub.
·Added
inspiration. The very fact that we’re not writing in the same place at the
same time every day means we’re exposing ourselves to new
stimuli. When we look up from the keyboard, in need of some inspiration for
the next paragraph, we often draw upon whatever we see. If we see the same thing
every day, we’re more likely to limit the scope of our possibilities.
The Cons of No Routines
·Lack
of productivity and discipline. Just as the freedom from routine
can inspire us to write at any time
of the day, it can also mean we end up writing only when we feel like it. As I’ve talked about in my audio
presentation Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration, we can’t sit around waiting for inspiration to find
us. We have to get off our duffs and go after it with industrial-grade
butterfly nets. Often, establishing a set writing time every day is the best
way to get inspiration to come to us.
·Lack
of organization. Another problem with the helter-skelter writing approach
is that we aren’t as likely to be organized. When our notes are written on
napkins, scraps of wrapping paper, the backs of grocery lists, not to
mention half a dozen digital devices (a computer or two, a flash drive or two,
our smart phones, our e-readers, and maybe a tablet to boot), we can easily
lose whole sections of writing altogether.
·Cold
feet. Lucky socks may get stinky, but at least your feet wouldn’t end up
looking like blue raspberry Popsicles.
