Experimenting with a New Writing Routine

I’m bedding in some new routines at the moment, trying to figure out ways to work smarter rather than harder. This is a response to the way current life-events are affecting my perspective around my projects, asking me to redefine what can be construed as a success outcome for a project or “a good day’s progress” when I’m writing.

This is always a danger when part of your income is predicated on freelance, contract, or irregular income: as you look to the future and see lean weeks on the horizon, it’s tempting to start thinking bigger, doing more, and figuring you can work faster. I can often tell when I’m tipping into outright anxiety because I start planning huge projects that are designed to fit around my already packed-out schedule.

I’ve felt myself doing it over the last couple of weeks. Little whispers like it’s time to start blogging daily again and hey, lets try and write a six-part novella series in the space of two months. There are definite advantages to embracing both those projects, but they’re also a response to the fact that my partner is leaving her job and dealing with a pinched nerve, while I’m finishing up a teaching contract and preparing to release a new short story collection.

In short, I’m twitchy about money and putting more pressure on my writing to make up the shortfall. And since writing only tends to pay off when your’e finishing something and selling it, I’m looking to produce more more more. My thought process is 100% reactive thinking: the new book won’t sell enough to make up for the lack of income – WRITE MORE! I’m not generating as many leads for new work while focusing on novels – WRITE MORE!

Which is, honestly, a way to make myself frustrated, produce work that I’m not particularly happy with, and ultimately cut my business plan off at the knees by operating in very panicked, reactive way (I know this because I’ve been here before, recognise that tree, and have tired these very tactics).

The routine I’m bedding in is a reaction to all of that, forcing myself to slow down and think things through instead of mindless hammering a keyboard while chasing word count. It’s building upon the success I’ve had using the Pomodoro technique when things are getting crazy, some notes in Jeff VanderMeer’s Booklife and Wonderbook (also, this blog post), some notes (and further reading) from this post from Tobias Buckell, and a whole bunch of notes I took while researching the routines of writers I admire.

Roughly, I’m aiming for something like this:

• 7:30 – 8:30. Do all the morning things: waking up, showering, breakfast, a little cleaning before I set up the day.
• 8:30 – 10:30. First work block of the day. This one’s largely focused on thinking and planning in the bullet journal or a project notebook. Mapping out scenes, working through plot or character development, asking myself questions about stuff I got stuck on yesterday.
• 10:30 – 11:00. Take a quick walk. Usually this will be continued thinking time about a particular problem.
• 11:00 – 12:30. Second work block of the day. This one’s where I actually start writing a scene (or thesis chunk), handwriting to keep myself off the computer for as long as possible.
• 12:30 – 2:00. Time out for lunch, any chores that are pressing, my first email check, and any other busy work that’s on my to-do list. I’ll generally add a bit to my weekly newsletter in this block, or draft a blog post for later in the day.
• 2:00 – 3:30. Third work block. This one’s dedicated to revision or typing up existing scenes into the project du jour and represents the first dedicated computer time of the day.
• 3:30 – 7:00. This is reading/research time and admin, leading into chores, a walk, dinner and hanging out with my partner as she comes home from work.
• 7:00 – 8:30. The reserve work block. If I feel like a day is going poorly, have research I’m really excited about, or I’ve got pressing deadlines that need to be covered (hello marking), I’ll negotiate a final block of work in the evenings with my partner.

Ideally, I’d like to keep that final block from being used, but I know myself and my reaction to stress – if I don’t have an overspill with limitations in place, I will end up falling into the habit of working throughout the evening or getting frustrated that I’m not working. Having something that I will use occasionally, with finish time, will hopefully keep me from disappearing into the realm of diminishing returns. Negotiating it with my partner is necessary because our flat is small, and it means I have to be real clear about why I want to use this block.

On a good day, this largely involves three hours of writing time split between first drafts and revision, and around 90 minutes of forward planning and/or PhD thinking. This is separated out by some dedicated rest time where I give my brain a break from deep work, which has the useful side effect of allowing new connections to form and ideas to spring up. The surprisingly useful thing, as suggested by Buckell’s post, is forcing myself to stop mid-task when the time is up, as leaving the ragged edge keeps me looking for new connections.

The upside of the plan is that it gives me more ongoing focus than I’m getting during a 25 minute pomodoro burst while retaining the work/rest pattern, although I’m noticing that my attention starts to flag after about an 70 minutes of a 90 minute block. If that doesn’t improve over time, I’ll look at reviewing this to focus on shorter periods of focus and shorter breaks.

The goal with the schedule is to push my attention away from word count in terms of judging how successful my day has been. For one thing, word count tends to be variable depending on the stage of a project. On top of that, it prefaces a certain kind of work (drafting) over other aspects of writing.

My overall goal is to slow down my writing process in order to speed up – producing more finished, strong final work instead of the surfeit of rough drafts that’s being generated by my current process.