Writer Tips

Developing Habits and Practices to Reach Your Goal

The Habit of Inspiration

Inspiration is a beautiful feeling: the sense that your story has opened itself up to you without any effort on your part, laid out for you to transcribe.

But waiting for the butterfly of inspiration to alight on your keyboard means you're more likely to not write than to write brilliantly. When we think of inspiration as a random event, it's impossible to predict; all we can do is respond. But what if we thought of inspiration as a habit? Let's return to the butterfly on the keyboard: if you plant and tend a butterfly garden, you'll find you suddenly have a lot more butterflies around.

Habits are the seeds we plant and tend in our lives. Building strong creativity habits is a way of making a commitment to yourself and your writing. Returning to the same practice of writing over and over again, dedicating your time and effort to it, is a way of building the planter beds and digging the rows for your butterfly garden. Pull up the weeds of self-doubt, perfectionism, and comparison. Even if you don't see the seeds growing, returning day after day to water them and care for them is how you give them the ability to grow.

How can you create habits that support your creativity? In what small or large ways can you give yourself more space to be creative? Maybe this looks like ten minutes of daily journaling when you wake up, or dedicating your commuting time to listening to your writing playlist, or setting a weekly writing date for yourself. Integrating these practices into your daily life and repeatedly returning to them helps you deepen your creative well. Rather than using up all your creativity on your journal pages, you'll likely find that you have more creative energy than you did before. Inspiration may start to come a little easier and more frequently: flashes of insight in line at the grocery store, or while you're prepping dinner. Rather than sitting at a keyboard waiting for inspiration to come to you, cultivating creative habits invites inspiration to emerge from the stuff of our lives.

The Importance of Rest

We live in a world that says that the only way to achieve your dreams, to "make something of yourself," to even be a worthwhile person, is to work as hard as possible for as long as possible.

But what if that wasn't true?

While consistently committing to your art is the best way to improve, this isn't about hustling as hard as possible or adjusting your #grindset. Instead of setting your alarm an extra half hour early to get in a writing sprint, what if you let yourself sleep in, or daydreamed before getting up? How might that change the trajectory of your day, and of your writing practice?

Rest is as integral to the creative process as practice is. Habit building is about protecting and nurturing your off-time just as much as it's about prioritizing your writing time. Humans are not machines, and we cannot produce endlessly. This is especially true for creative work, which is both intellectually and emotionally intensive. So much of creative work relies on things happening outside of our conscious awareness: random thoughts, what-ifs, chance encounters, and a sense of wonder are all crucial parts of the creative process, even if they don't look "productive" at first glance. Without time to let those things percolate, our creative output can quickly start to feel rote, draining, or uninspired.

If you're dealing with a ton of writer's block and your story just isn't coming, you might be a little creatively tapped out. This might necessitate a longer period of rest. But just as your body can't function without sleep, your creative mind can't function without down time.

Try this Exercise: Supportive Habits

The purpose of this exercise is to help you think through what your most supportive habits might be based on how you're feeling in any given phase of your life. We all have highs and lows, times where we need more rest and times where we are able to write more easily. These questions are designed to help you figure out where you are and what you might need right now.

GREEN ZONE:

Everything is going great. It's easy to commit to a writing schedule, and writing sessions feel doable, even if I'm not always getting big word counts. External life stressors aren't intruding too much on writing, and things overall feel balanced. When I encounter rough patches with my story or stuck places, I know I can work through them.

What habits help me write when I am in the green zone?

What commitments am I able to make from this zone?

What does my rest routine look like in this zone?

What do I need to do to stay in this zone?

YELLOW ZONE:

Things feel a little hard. I'm finding it hard to stay with my writing schedule, or sessions sometimes feel draining. But when I do write, I can sometimes find a groove. External life stressors are pressing on me, but I am able to hold them at bay enough to write some of the time. Rough patches or stuck places in my story feel hard to work through, but it takes me a while.

What habits help me write when I am in the yellow zone?

What commitments am I able to make from this zone?

What does my rest routine look like in this zone?

What do I need to do to stay in this zone?

What do I need to do or what needs to change so I can climb back into the green zone?

RED ZONE:

Things feel REALLY hard. I can't commit to a writing schedule. When I try, I stare at a blank page. I feel exhausted and tapped out. External life stressors are overwhelming me. Everything is one big rough patch. I don't know what to do next.

What does creativity look like for me in the red zone? How can I nurture it even when things feel hard?

What does my rest routine look like in this zone?

What are my rest needs beyond my regular rest routine?

What do I need to do or what needs to change so I can climb back into the yellow zone?

How can I be gentle with myself as I exist in this zone?