There are few things better than when you’ve first come up with a new novel idea. You’ll sit down at your computer and crank out page after page in a blaze of inspiration. You’ll feel like this sense of creative euphoria could go on forever until it … doesn’t.
It’s easy to feel like a good, productive writer when you’re at the part of writing a book where you’re just bursting with ideas. But the road gets much rougher once your engine stalls and you feel you don’t have any inspiration left.
To keep cranking out those pages even when things get hard, it’s important to have a writing routine. It’s difficult to find time in your schedule and commit to a regular writing habit, but if you can, it will help you finish your rough draft and eventually complete your novel.
Here are seven tips on how to create an effective writing routine.
1) Learn from the Masters
If you’re not sure how to build your writing routine, you can always look to your favorite authors and check out their routines. While some authors don’t have a real structure to their work, many do. The Internet is full of inspirational quotes that will get you excited about getting down to work, like this one from E.B. White: “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.”
Here’s another quote from Haruki Murakami about his writing routine from a 2004 interview: “I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.” When in writing mode, he also wakes at 4:00 AM and writes for five or six hours, then he runs for ten kilometers or swims for fifteen hundred meters (or does both) a day.
In a 2021 interview, Stephen King shared that he’s always most creative in the mornings (usually 8:30 to 12:30) after taking a walk. He prefers to have the shades down in his office. “The shades are down,” he explains, “because if I look at the outside world too much, I lose the inside world.”
Authors vary greatly in the routines that work for them, though common factors tend to be some sort of physical activity and working in the morning (as J.K. Rowling has said, “The earlier in the day I start, the more productive I am.”). If there’s a particular author whose routine you’re curious about, just Google “AUTHOR NAME writing routine” and you’re very likely to find some relevant results.
2) Figure Out a Good Time of Day
Once you’ve done some reading up on the habits of your favorite authors, it’s time to start figuring out a good time each day for you to write. This isn’t always the easiest task. You might have kids to get to school in the morning, a full-time job during the day, and more time with kids and dinner to get on the table at night.
You may want to take a page out of the authors’ books in the previous section and get up early to write. Whenever you usually get up, tack on an extra hour or two and make that your dedicated writing time. One wonderful thing about writing early in the morning is that it’s blissfully quiet with few disturbances.
But say you already get up early for work and can’t fathom getting up any earlier. Or you’re just really not a morning person. You can still find an extra hour or two to carve out of your day. One of the easiest ways to do this is to cut down on your TV time. Or maybe you’ll have to wait until your kids have gone to bed.
It can be very difficult to find time to write when you have a busy schedule. But with some determination, you should be able to figure out a time to write that works for you.
3) Plug Writing Time Into Your Calendar
Now that you’ve found a regular time you can write, it’s a good idea to plug that writing time into your schedule. You may use a paper calendar or something like Google Calendar on your phone—whatever works for you. I like Google Calendar since you can set it to remind you of your writing time with an alarm. I set my alarm fifteen minutes before I’m due to write so I have time to get ready (more on that in the next section).
If you’re not a calendar person, you can add your writing time to your daily to-do list. In recent months, I’ve started making a to-do list for each day and it’s done wonders for my productivity. There’s something so satisfying about crossing items off the list as you finish them.
Adding your writing habit to your schedule or to-do list is a way to make that commitment feel real. It will sit there amongst your other daily activities and seem more like something you have to do.
If you’re not in the habit of keeping a calendar or making to-do lists, it might be time to start. You have no idea how helpful it can be when keeping yourself organized enough to commit to a routine (something we’ll discuss more later).
4) Create an Environment Where You Feel Productive
When committing to a regular writing routine, it’s important that you make the practice something you look forward to. So you should create a writing environment that makes you feel happy and contented. Part of that is starting some kind of comforting ritual like preparing a certain drink like coffee or tea or listening to music (more on that below).
No matter where your workspace is—be it an office, your living room, or a café—there are always ways to make that space spark creativity. In an office, you can decorate the area with quotes that inspire you and images like beautiful forests and waterfalls that make you feel creative. In noisier atmospheres, you can invest in some noise-canceling headphones that will help you shut out the world outside and sink into your story’s world.
Ergonomics is also crucial to keep in mind when building an environment that makes you feel productive. Allow yourself to spend some money on a comfortable chair (I put up with a cheap, uncomfortable chair for years and am so glad I sprung for a new one). And set your computer up so it’s at eye level and you don’t have to crane your neck to look down.
For more info on how to make your writing environment conducive to creativity, click here.
5) Keep Organized
Now that you’re sitting at your desk and raring to go, your heart will start to sink at the sight of your cluttered desktop. You don’t know where to find your outline or most recent chapters, and start feeling like you’re failing before you even begin.
The solution to this problem is just one simple word: Folders. In both my own creative writing and freelance work, I keep track of everything with folders. For a novel I’m working on, I first create a folder with the book’s title (or an abbreviation if the book’s title is long) as the name within my “Writing” folder. Then I created folders for “Outlines”, “Drafts”, “Cuts”, and other relevant categories. I also create folders for my Bookmarks online, which is a huge help in my book research.
Keeping organized with my work has saved me tons of frustration searching for files and articles. Seeing a clean, organized desktop will help to calm your mind and get you ready to be productive with your writing.
In addition to keeping your desktop clean, you’ll want to keep your desk decluttered as well. You may not think the mess in your computer and on your desk bothers you, but you will be surprised how much better you’ll feel once you get organized.
6) Make Writing Playlists
I have gone on many, many times before about how incredibly helpful it can be to create writing playlists for your stories. I’m bringing it up again here since in addition to being a helpful writing aid, it will help you keep to your writing routine.
Having songs playing in the background that feel like your story can help to kickstart your daily routine. It will be something to look forward to that will make you more eager to get writing. The playlist will also provide you with inspiration.
Even if you’re not particularly musically inclined, you can probably think of some song or piece of music that reminds you of your story. Try listening to that music while you write. You may be surprised how deeply you’re able to sink into your world with music as your aid.
It’s possible that you’ll try listening to music as you write and it just won’t work for you. Some people need absolute silence, and there’s no problem with that. But why not give it a shot? If you’re looking for a guide on how to make a writing playlist, this post will walk you through the process.
7) Set Writing Goals
One of the most pivotal parts of creating an effective writing routine is to set writing goals. After all, it’s hard to set up a structured routine if you’re just writing aimlessly with no end in sight. First, you should figure out when you want to be finished your rough draft. It’s important to be realistic here—if you’ve only got an hour one day a week to write, you’re not going to finish in a matter of months. But it’s good to nail down a concrete end date.
Next, it’s time to chunk your work into smaller goals. These smaller goals can be whatever you’d like. You might want to finish your outline by a certain date, or a certain number of chapters. These smaller goals will make your overarching goal more manageable and less overwhelming.
Then comes the smallest goal—your daily word count. This is another time when you need to be realistic. If you’ve only got a little time to write and don’t tend to write quickly, shooting for 5,000 words each writing session will surely end in failure. On a good day, I can crank out 2,000 words in a session, but I make my goal 1,000 so I’m not setting myself up for disappointment.
There are days when I only end up with a few hundred words or don’t end up writing anything at all. And that’s totally fine! These goals aren’t around to make you feel bad. They’re there to motivate you to move forward.
I hope these tips will help you create a writing routine that will spark creativity and help you to become a more productive writer. You can have all the talent in the world but discipline is what’s going to keep you turning out pages on a regular schedule. And after that hard work, you’ll have a completed manuscript!
Soak Yourself in Fiction
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