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The Practice of Writing Every Day

Every Damn Day Writing! I belong to a writing group called Every Damn Day Writers.  We set it up to encourage ourselves to write  every day. The practice of writing every day builds the habit of creating and of course pushes your manuscript forward. A daily schedule stirs the creative brain into action. It’s a magical key that unlocks the door — not only to a new room, but eventually a whole new book. So how do you establish a daily writing habit?

Writing practice is like ballet. Whatever talent you possess, it gets better with daily exercise. It’s impossible not to improve if you sit down to your work on a regular basis. Like meditation, the act of creating is vigorous. It’s intense and difficult, requiring great focus, making it hard to think of anything else. It can be argued that writing is meditation. Though the body may be still for long minutes during this act, a lot is going on neurologically. Your sympathetic nervous system calms, the scientists report. And over a long period of exercising this function, the brain changes, studies have found. It moves toward the habit of sustained happiness.

Changing Your Brain to Enhance Creativity

Do you feel happier after a period of writing? I call it “writer’s glow”. It occurs to me even after a short bout of creating, say working out a one-page poem. The focus drops away the “monkey mind” habit of my brain to be distracted by passing thoughts. The space left afterward is clear and fresh, like a beautiful landscape. In fact, everything feels beautiful for a while writing.

The lucky thing is that this daily writing practice becomes easier the more you do it. It’s the power of habit, which works for good habits as well as bad ones because we’re all essentially addictive personalities. I choose to be addicted to writing because it makes me happy. And because of it, I have published four novels in four years.

Scheduling Your Daily Writing

The hardest part of setting yourself a daily practice of any kind is figuring out when you can best sustain it. For me, first thing in the day is my best creative time. Luckily, I’m now mostly retired from most work for pay. But even when I was working a full schedule, I put my writing practice first in the day.

Morning writing accomplishes two things: it casts the happiness factor over the rest of the day and it ensures that you won’t face it when tired or already distracted. I find it easier to remember my novel’s characters and plot if I write in the morning.

But what about people whose schedules don’t permit a regular session? Here are some questions whose answers can help:

      1. How much or little writing constitutes a daily practice?
      2. Does revision, editing, or just thinking about your work count?
      3. Will taking a break mess up your writing practice?

The happy answers:

      1. Even five minutes of creative thinking counts.
      2. Revision, editing, creative brainstorming without putting even a word on a page — it all counts.
      3. Breaks are good for any career. Breaks from writing become hard to take once your creating-happiness quotient fills up. But they’re necessary.

Another aid to setting a writing schedule is technology. Some people sweat by pen and paper, but I’ve developed the habit of dictating new scenes on my phone, in the Notes app. Then they sync with my computer and I can copy and paste into the manuscript later. I can dictate even while in the shower (stepping out quickly, phone nearby). While walking my dog or vacuuming.

And the even happier news is that  missed sessions don’t break the flow, once you’ve established the creative habit. If you don’t miss your session too often, the power of habit works in your favor and will be ready to urge you on next time you sit down to your work.

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