How I finally got my writing habits in check

Celebrating my achievements with the Awakening means celebrating the changes I resentfully made to my writing systems. After years of just hoping for the best, opening the manuscript and hoping for the words to flow semi-coherently I decided that 2022 was THE YEAR I was going to get a handle on this writing thing (oh boy did I ever!).

Sure, there might be client gigs, or months’ worth of day-job grinds, but this year…THIS YEAR! Writing was going to happen!

And it was going to happen in a BIG WAY!

Late December 2021, after coping with another day-job burnout (long story but in a nutshell, goals that were impossible to meet all while being acutely aware that I was a very expendable contract worker), I signed up for the Write Better Faster Academy 101 course that was due to start in January 2022; a 30-day course that, if it delivered on its promise, I’d be set.

It did.

In big ways.

In little ways.

Sort of.

A lot of the course was about self-acceptance by learning where you fell on certain spectrums. But it was on me to build the habits and systems I needed to thrive. I’ll admit I was resistant to many of the changes I needed to make.

Turns out I’m change averse. I think on a subconscious level I’m aware of this sad little fact, which explains why I keep throwing myself into the deep end instead of easing myself in. For me, there is no easing myself into a change. This year, I try to be a little more… gentle with myself.

*My score for year, broken down by month.*

Holy moly! 157,000 words! That’s like 2 whole books for writers who are not me.

The experience wasn’t a BAM! Insta-writing machine! It was a gradual thing, which I’m still working on, day-by-day, while re-affirming my commitment to my writing weekly, which is more than just a line at the top of my weekly planner that reads something like: I will make writing my priority this week.

Then promptly clean the bathroom – because it’s easier.

January was NOT my worst month. That’s despite being fixated on the course to the point of distraction. The course insists on making one small change at a time. Figure out if it’s working, then either drop it, or make a new small change.

Change scares me.

I stuck with familiar habits while I considered which change I wanted to make, at the same time knowing what change I NEEDED to make; a subtle but important distinction.

OLD HABITS

CLEAN ENVIRONMENT

I cleaned my desk, reducing the clutter, the distraction (though my pile of notebooks have surreptitiously returned to my desk because I have to transcribe my notes before my big move overseas).

A clean focused environment was something I had heard about on a Creativity podcast back in 2012, who has long since stop publishing content. God help me, I wish I had bought the book they were mentioning in that episode, but the principles made sense. A place for everything; everything in its place.

A little trick that I apply to writing is totally what I apply to my spaces: What is the purpose of this room? Does this item serve the purpose of this room? Very useful trick.

While a clean, clutter free environment does help with focus, for me it’s ultimately procrastination.

Clean & Tidy space helps with the focus. Hold on a sec while I add a stack of notebooks and gel pens

SILENCE IS GOLDEN

These days, my home is pretty quiet, but it wasn’t always the case. Granted, at the time I had bought my noise reduction headset, I thought it was to block out noise (like duh!), not to make things quiet.

Kay, I know that sounds the same but there’s a difference.

Noise reduction is great if you have no control over the sound coming at you – like say road traffic outside your window. Sometimes reducing the noise is the best you can hope for. For a long while that was my reality.

Turns out, I write optimally in silence. Like complete silence. I’m a lone cabin in the wood’s silence kind of person. You’d think I’d thrive in a library, but I don’t. Café’s don’t work for me either because of the noise pollution; for me it’s a distraction.

You might do well with the novelty of a new environment. I don’t.

Change. I hate it.

I’ve been using an ambient music app called Soundscape Generator. I preferred Oblivion. Sometimes when I’m working on less creative-thinky work, I’ll toss up some Winter Jazz or Work Jazz, or listen to some creepy pasta.

But for writing, and other heavy concentration tasks, I discovered that I instinctually turn off sound. I’d been doing this for years. I mean, I’d notice, but I didn’t connect the dots.

The course helped me to take note of some of my flow moments:

What pulled me in?

What took me out?

What did I do when I wasn’t 100% paying attention?

In which situations did I turn off music or put on my headset, or just turned of sound in general?

Why do I get so annoyed when my hourly chime sounds?

So many sound related little things that started to finally make sense.

I didn’t clue in fully to writing in silence until December 2022, almost a full year after taking that course. The quiet thing was always a part of what I did, but now that I’m aware of it, I wonder now if I’ll test it for a month or so to see how it improves my writing experience.

These two things I was already familiar with and refining month-after-month, year-after-year. It was nothing new.

Sure. I could continue to optimize these two things into oblivion, they weren’t really what I NEEDED to do.

And I knew it.

I had to do two things: Write earlier in the day, and write for longer periods.

Even then, achieving both those things had a lot of moving parts to them, some of which was hindering me from reaching my desired goals.

Writing for 8-hrs? Is that a real thing?

GETTING STARTED – ONE DAY MAYBE

From February to December, my focus was to write for longer periods. Easy right?

It felt reasonable.

The thing is, I had oodles of time. At least until March, when my contract ‘might’ be renewed for a few months of work. As for my big client, there was a budgeting issue that was sort of covid related, and the CEO felt that other projects required more budget than this other one. There was more to it, but to keep things professional, that’s all I’ll say on that project.

As far as I was aware, I had at least 1-2 months to test some of my theories with the course. If I wasn’t renewed, I’d have until June-July, when my second contract usually rattled my chain. I had time!

I was determined.

I’d do my morning self-care routine, make myself a semi-coherent human (even actually got properly dressed in actual pants and stuff on a few occasions), sat down at my desk and then…

Suddenly, it’s 2pm and I haven’t written a word. What the hell did I do?!

TIME TRACKING WHILE YOU’RE NOT LOOKING

I had done time tracking in the past, but often lost the sheet. I had used digital time trackers that ran in the background, but let’s just say it’s not quite accurate and it had a bias on focusing on the background noise application instead of tracking what I was actually doing (like running Netflix while I was doing bookkeeping). My results, apart from being not what I wanted to see, was also no where close to reality. I noticed because the app said I hadn’t done any writing on a day I had done actual writing.

I had to do time tracking as part of the course. I realize now that those data points I collected during the course didn’t matter because of mindset issues at the time.

With the course, I was putting on my best. I was more productive during that period because I was trying to look like I was legitimately productive, desperately trying to prove that the problem wasn’t with my ability to get things done. Therefore, I was the productive person I often get mistaken for. But I wasn’t going to be handing in time sheets forever.

On a subconscious level, I think I knew the data was skewed.

In October, in an undated day planner, I logged everything I did for 30-days (not counting weekends). It was simultaneously helpful, but also not. But at least it was honest, because there’s no way I can put my best foot forward for 30-days with no one looking. Leave it to me to slack off somewhere. I kind of got sloppy by week 4 with logging, but I was good about logging my videos, gaming, and other fun activities during my ‘work’ period.

I had to make rules for myself to get anything to work.

Rules don’t work for everyone. They generally work for me. Generally. Not always.

As of January in the new year, no more videos or gaming before my writing. In June, do another 30-day time tracker on paper. Are things the same? Have I kept to my rule? Only time will tell.

WRITE FIRST THING, IF YOU FEEL LIKE IT

I’m not one of those sick people who can function without caffeine.

Oh yeah, this thing hurt!

I had convinced myself that I couldn’t do this. I had legitimately tried to write first thing for years with varying success, but mostly fails. It was obvious that this was one of the things I needed to do if I was going to get anywhere.

I still don’t quite write first thing; it really depends on my morning alertness. But for the most part, I just need 15-minutes to get my mental faculties flowing (something I learned through that contract work I mentioned earlier). I don’t need much time at all.

I know this. Yet I resist.

I was told to journal first thing then. Journal about writing. Do morning pages.

I love it, but I can think and journal for hours! Which as it turns out is one of the ways I lose time. I like to journal about projects, less so about emotional stuff. I like thinking forward. All of this should have been good for writing.

It is, but not first thing in the morning.

I opt for a dangerous thing. I opt to do the thing that is THE TOP thing writers are told to stop doing.

DITCH SOCIALS UNTIL YOU’RE DONE WRITING

Hear me out.

I need something. I guess I need my fix. But it’s not quite like that either.

I have 15-30-mins of what I call communications. This term is critical because it shapes the purpose of what I’m doing during that period. It does to my brain what I need it to do so I focus on ‘communicating’ my story with my readers. At least that’s what I’m telling myself right now.

I check my email. I do a really quick check of my spam folder, delete it, then delete the adverts from places I’ve signed up to for reasons (like triangle rewards from Canadian Tire – only because I want to see the balance on the card. Now that I think about it, I don’t ever open those emails, so that’s a moot point). Mostly I’m looking for 2 types of emails. One is from my clients, so I can read, respond, and plan for their needs in the afternoon AFTER my writing session.

The second email is pretty much anything that I’ve been waiting on. Shipping notifications, appointments, webinar dates, subscription notifications that I may want to renew or unsubscribe from. It’s really basic.

I also get the occasional email from friends, so I’ll answer those too.

It usually takes me about 5-10 minutes. In theory, which is something I should test in the new year, I should be good to go straight into writing. But at this time, I don’t. After email, I head into my socials. Right now, there are two groups I look at: Strengths for Writers, and HB90 Bootcamp.

I’m a productivity nut, so both these groups feed into that mojo in some way. I like seeing the photos for some of the creative strategies the folks at HB90 get up to. Some great tactics that have really helped me focus came out of that group (even if I was procrastinating at the time).

What I have to avoid is the live feed, which is hard to do because of how the social media environment is designed. To overcome this, I go directly to the groups I want to see and click on new posts. The groups are active enough that I can expect replies to my comments, but not necessarily get any new posts past 5pm. It’s a nice change. Not feeling the urge to check my messages every two minutes, because nothing new will be there, reduces my mental load.

WRITING FIRST THING. IS IT A THING NOW?

Not really. I got the hang of it for a while. I was doing really good too. Like all habits, there was some slipping.

There was a period where I was trying out the morning pages. But those took too long.

I tried out one YouTube video while chilling with my morning tea. You can guess how well that turned out.

I ended up trying something out called future casting. How does a day plan end up taking an hour to write? To be fair, I was also writing out my weekly, and my daily tasks… It was overkill. I’m mostly stopped daily planning in December. I might stick to weekly planning in the new year. It just feels like it’s all too much sometimes…

Sometimes I wake up too late, especially during the winter. It’s cold outside of my blankets.

The truth is this is what I need to do.

OBEY THE ALARM CLOCK

I’m not much of a morning person, but I sure have improved over the years!

Set my alarm to 8:00am and instead of turning off the alarm, get out of bed. I ‘should’ move my alarm to my dresser, forcing me to get out of bed to turn it off. I should. But I probably won’t. Maybe I will. But I probably won’t.

Oh god. This is a total should thing. Damn. I guess I will. But I’ll do it in March after my move. Because why stress myself out when I already have to change my sleep pattern by like 5-hours. UGH! See, change averse! If I want to throw myself off the deep end, I could just wake up 5-hrs earlier and go to bed at 7pm like an OLD PERSON!

Sorry you had to see that. I’m fine. March. I’ll do it in March.

NO MORE SOCIALS ALL TOGETHER

I only need 15-minutes. I can always review my ‘pending’ appointment emails, or do some minor inbox-0 review.

I think I’m ready. I can do this.

As of January.

There’s like 3 days left in December. Why rock the boat? I don’t even plan to do writing this week. It’s all project planning for the new year. Maybe this time I won’t try to cram 7-years of projects into one year. Maybe.

WRITE FASTER, LONGER? TIME TO ADJUST MY EXPECTATIONS.

Here’s the grand ambition: write for 8-hours a day, like it’s a full-time job.

Only thing is, I usually reach my quota within 4-hrs. It’s kind of always been like that for me. The first 4-hours of my day is when the bulk of my work is going to get done. It not only get’s done, but I get more done than 3-5 of my co-workers combined (I have the data to back-up that claim, and yes, my boss decided that hiring 5 people at full big city wages was worth more than having me there. That’s probably a me problem – but I work for myself now and he’s bankrupt, so… fuck him).

That data used to mean something to me. All it did was pile on these huge unrealistic expectations on me. Like I ‘should’ be able to write a book a month. I can’t. I know why now. And it’s an expectation I’ve let go of.

I’d love to be able to write a book a year, but my reality is probably going to be something like a book every 3-years. It hurts because I feel like I can’t compete. I’ve never been one for competitions anyway, but to frame it another way: it feels like failing from the get go. Like I can’t ever make a living as a writer because I A. Don’t write to market (specially I don’t write to trends or in popular genres – I’m not in it for the money, but at the same time, I sort of am) and B. I write too slow.

Pre-Covid I read a book my Cal Newport called Deep Work (highly recommend). He proposes that the average person is only capable of a max of 4-hours of deep concentrated thinking work. Which sort of falls inline with my achievements with traditional employment, and client work… but did it fall inline with writing?

I lowered my expectations from wanting to write for 8-hours to writing for 4-hours.

DATA. DATA. I NEED MORE DATA!

The question was how long was I actually writing when I was writing? Lucky for me, when I started the Write Better Faster 101 course, I started tracking again.

To get this dataset to work for me I needed to make a few more changes. The first was my definition of writing.

To the BFA writing includes: Plotting, Drafting, Writing, Revising, Editing AND THINKING! I still don’t log thinking time. Sometimes a thought bubbles up and its book related, but most of the time I’m thinking about what to make for dinner.

It was easy to embrace all of the other writing related things though, so that’s what I tracked.

The second change was that I absolutely NEEDED to stop trying to achieve a specific word count.

*This is my word count by session over 2022.*

I spent 3 hours in December (I log by 30-minute blocks) and only managed 705 words one day. The following day, I spent 3-hours and managed 2,431 words. Reason: I need to figure out how and why certain things needed to happen in a certain way. It took time to figure all of that out. When I did sort out the issue, BAM! The words flowed.

The answer to my question: How much time was I writing in a day?

I don’t want to say I wasn’t trying, because I was. Every day, with the exception of the planned non-writing days, I’m at my writing desk first thing usually around 9am and I don’t leave until 1pm. As it turns out that just because I’m there, doesn’t mean I’m writing. WHAT THE FLYING HELL!

When I signed up to HB90 for the last quarter of the year, the goal was literally to increase my writing time. I even had quotas (little good that did)! October was supposed to be 2-hrs daily, which I thought I achieved… though I’m going to get skewed results when I average sessions out, because I most certainly didn’t hit my 2-hr goal every day.

Come November, I caught the flu, but I had at least week where I hit 2.5-hrs. I CAN do it! But like I said, I caught the flu and I accepted that I’d be dead for a few weeks, well into December.

In December, I was meant to do 3-hrs daily, but with my yearly project planning, a new quarter to plan, and just the magnitude of the overwhelm of moving abroad, I’m kind enough to myself to just stick to two hours daily, which I mostly kept to, except for the hand full of days where I do way better.

I have noted however that I did not EVER, not even once, hit 4-hours of writing.

Okay, so I have realistic data. What to do with it?

2023 CHANGES

My goal for the first 6-months is to go from 2-hrs to 2.5hrs of writing. Come July, I’m reaching for 3-hrs. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to reach 4-hrs. Right now, the data says, don’t hold your breath. But at the same time, I can see subtle but gradual improvements, like the habit of writing is more like a mental exercise that just needs to be worked out regularly to gain strength. My growth is just slower than I’d like, but I’ll take consistency over flaming out (I think)!

I also learned that I only do actual writing 4-days a week. I’m either going to set Mon or Fri to plotting, thinking (journaling about writing) days, or just allocate whatever weekly project I’m trying to wrap-up to that day for mental relief. I’ll try the plotting/journaling days first before throwing my hands up and giving in to the project gods.

In the end, I wrote 157,000 words in 2022, which is a huge accomplishment for me. Granted I had time in my favor, but the data has put into perspective that I just need a couple of hours a day to make significant progress. Despite not being done with the 4th draft of Awakening, I’m in a really good place with the story.

Now to build up that focus muscle just a little more so I can do better next year. LET THE WORDS FLOW!