How Do You Maintain Your Writing Discipline?
Author Bharti Kirchner as portrayed by photographer Susan Doupe
How do you maintain your writing discipline?
This is a question I am often asked. A strict schedule helps. Making a habit helps. For me, it’s writing first thing in the morning. I think it works because I want to write. I want to see the screen fill up with words. I envision a magazine piece, a scene from a novel, an essay being launched satisfactorily. I crave it.
Cravings fuel my discipline.
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Bharti Kirchner is the author of 5 novels and 4 cookbooks. Visit Bharti-Kirchner’s website.
Category: Being a Writer, Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing
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It depends what I’m working on-if Im at a part of my story that excites me, then I can’t wait to get to night time to get started! On other days I make a plan of what I want to get done and tell myself if I don’t do it, then the story won’t get told!
I don’t have a pattern. I work on projects. Because I also need to do a lot of research for some projects, writing comes into play in stages. But, I keep a notebook with me always, even when I sleep, to capture my ideas. For example, one night I,woke up laughing. I had a dream about a comedy cooking show (and I can’t cook) and wrote down as much as I could remember. That story is in the projects pile. I publish articles, blog posts, reviews , etc. Just finished my first book,,Gina’s Dream, a project that had been in my pile for years. I was able to finish it because now I have more time to devote to longer works. I am constantly re prioritizing my projects. But, I treat my week like a work week. Most mornings, I go to my PC and work on projects and “quit” around 4:30 to focus on personal and social tasks.
Writing is my daily medicine. It gives expression to what is going on in my soul. Sometimes the only meaningful conversation that I can have at the moment is what what I am penning!
I write before the dawn breaks when my mind is virgin and clear. On other occasions, I write with only natural interruptions like rain, wind, dust.
The solitary aspect of writing and living in my characters’ heads keeps me in the chair. I also get up very early, so there’s not much else to do when it’s dark and my half of the world is sleeping.
Writing is my job. I show up and get it done. There are great days and there are not so great days, but I still show up. The key is to de-romanticize it. It’s just like any other career–if you skip work, you can’t be successful.
Just make an effort to write something every day, even if it’s only a paragraph. Grab wherever you can, even if it’s only 15 minutes (15 minutes is 250-300 words). I started my redraft on July 5, and I have 15K done. That’s from days where I did 300 words, and other days where I was over 1K.
If I want to be taken seriously as a writer, I have to write seriously, as in discipline myself, stop procrastinating and put the hours in. That’s my motivation!
I try to write every day – but if Life gets in the way, then I don’t beat myself up. I write because I love it, and if I stop loving it I shall stop writing
I write, every day. Every morning, I wake up an hour before the rest of my family and set a goal between 500 and 1k words before they’re up. After they’re up, it’s getting the kids to school and me to work. I work parttime, and then come home in the afternoon, and, before bed that evening, have to make it to another goal.
It’s really about discipline, about making it a habit. The days I skip writing now feel wrong and uneasy, like forgetting to shower.
I try to make sure that every day, something writing-related happens. In addition to writing, I’m a copy editor and a fanfic beta-reader. I alternate my priorities. So on Monday, I write a scene. When it’s finished, if I still want to do more, I edit/beta something. Tuesday I set a reasonable beta/edit goal (depending on quality of the work). Once I hit that, if I want to do more, I’ll work on a scene.
Before I start writing a new chapter, I plot out an outline.
Oh, and when I finish a chapter, I usually take a couple of days away from writing to recharge. That doesn’t necessarily mean a clean break. Usually, it means reviewing what I just wrote, thinking about what’s next, double-checking my research, but no actual writing.