Make It a Habit: How to develop a writing routine one tiny step at a time

One of my easiest habits to maintain is exercising with my dog, Joanie.

A recently retired friend of mine is turning to writing creative non-fiction after many years as a veterinarian. She asked me about developing a good writing routine.

I chuckled because for me, developing a regular writing routine is easier said than done. I feel a LOT of resistance when I sit down to write fiction.

I doubt I’ll ever NOT feel resistance. Writing fiction is scary for me. Maybe it is for you too.

I can do scary things and so can you! (For example, I joined the Army Reserve at age 27 to see if I could do it.) But I wish the fear would just shut up and leave me alone for five minutes.

So I’m trying something a little different thanks to a business book I read recently. It’s called The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and the whole book is about how to develop the focus and the habits to accomplish your big goals.

Here’s one of the tips I jotted down: “The trick to success is to choose the right habit and bring just enough discipline to establish it.” 

What might the “right habit” be for you? I decided that for me, it was to tack it onto a writing habit that’s already years in the making.

On Feb. 4, 2013, I started a daily journal on my computer. I used Julia Cameron’s “morning pages” idea from The Artist’s Way as my model—except typing instead of handwriting.

So I decided that my new habit is to move straight into fiction writing immediately after completing my morning page. My daily, baby-step fiction goal is either 250 words of new draft material or 30 minutes of brainstorming, planning, or revising.

Turning that action into a habit takes some discipline, says Gary Keller. You may have heard that it takes 21 days to establish a new habit, but according to Keller’s review of multiple studies, it takes an average of 66 days to establish a new habit.

More than two months! At the time I wrote this blog post, I was about 21 days into practicing my new habit, and it did not yet feel automatic. It takes fewer days for easier habits to get established. This has not been an easy habit for me.

He has other good advice about this: “Build one habit at a time. Success is sequential, not simultaneous.”

In other words, don’t try to change everything at once. Focus on ONE Thing (as his book title reminds readers).

What good habit(s) do you have around writing?