You don’t need to write every day to be a writer. You need a way of returning to your work regularly enough that your writing remains part of your life.
A writing practice isn’t a rigid schedule. It’s the collection of habits, routines and choices that help you keep coming back to the page.
Start with what you actually have
Rather than beginning with an ideal writing life, look at your real one.
When do you have time? When do you have the most energy? What commitments are non-negotiable? What could you realistically protect?
Look at your actual week, rather than the ideal week you’d like to have, and notice where there are realistic opportunities to write.
For example:
- Monday: 20 minutes between dropping the kids off and an appointment
- Tuesday: 30 minutes before dinner
- Wednesday: 45 minutes after the morning school run
- Thursday: no realistic window
- Friday: 30 minutes in the afternoon
Then identify two or three windows you could realistically protect for writing. The important thing is that these don’t have to be your biggest blocks of free time. We’re looking for repeatable, usable pockets of time.
Decide what ‘regular’ means for you
Regular doesn’t have to mean daily. What matters is finding a pattern you can repeat without constantly having to renegotiate it.
For one writer, it might mean 30 minutes every morning. For another, two longer sessions each week. The important thing is that the pattern is predictable enough that you don’t have to renegotiate it every time.
Create a beginning ritual
A small ritual can help you move from the rest of your life into writing mode.
Make tea. Light a candle Put your phone away. Read the last paragraph you wrote. Open the same notebook. Set a timer.
The ritual isn’t magic. It simply reduces the number of decisions between you and the work.
Know what you’re doing when you sit down
‘Work on my novel’ can be too vague.
Instead, leave yourself a specific next step: write the next scene, revise the conversation between X and Y, research the setting, or draft 500 words.
Make it easy to come back
Don’t finish every session at a natural stopping point. Sometimes leave yourself a note about what happens next.
That way, tomorrow’s question isn’t ‘Where was I?’ It’s ‘Here’s where I left off.’
Your writing practice needs to survive real life
Illness, holidays, family, work and unexpected things will interrupt your practice. The goal isn’t to create a routine that never breaks. It’s to create one you know how to return to.
A practical exercise to begin a sustainable writing practice
Before you create a writing routine, find out what a writing session actually needs to look like for you.
For one week, experiment with different lengths of time for your writing sessions. Start with just 10 minutes. At the end of the session, ask yourself: Did I have enough time to make useful progress?
If the answer is no, add another five or ten minutes the next time. Keep experimenting until you find the minimum amount of time that feels like a useful writing session.
This might be 10 minutes. It might be 20, 30 or 60. There is no right answer.
Once you’ve found your minimum useful session, look at your week and identify where you could realistically block out that amount of time for writing.
The aim isn’t to create the perfect writing schedule. It’s to find a rhythm that fits your actual life and makes it easier to keep returning to your work.
If you know what you want to write but keep struggling to make the time, Writing Momentum could be a good next step. We meet regularly to write, make progress and keep returning to the work, with a community of other writers alongside you.
If you need something more tailored to your writing, you can also work with me one-to-one. We can look at where you’re stuck, what you want to achieve and what kind of support would help you move your writing forward.