There’s nothing more daunting when writing a book than getting that first draft down on paper. During the early stages of your book project, you start with a blank screen or a blank piece of paper with a goal of sharing your knowledge and experience. Even with a strong table of contents or mind map, it’s easy to get distracted and discouraged. After all, your life continues and you can’t go to a desert island without distractions to get your book written.
Some of the reasons I’ve heard for people not finishing their first draft are:
- I have too many projects, that I need to clear off my plate
- I have to be in the mood to write
- I hit a stumbling block and I don’t know how to move forward
When you rely on inspiration to strike or an empty ToDo list you’re setting yourself up for failure. Consistent action in the form of a routine is what will get your book finished. Having a consistent writing methodology and routine will even help prevent or minimize writer’s block.
I’m not talking about something elaborate or complicated. A routine is simply a sequence of actions that are regularly followed. For example, you may already have a bedtime routine you follow each day such as:
- Turn out the kitchen lights and check to ensure the doors are locked
- Put on your pajamas
- Wash your face
- Brush your teeth
- Set your alarm
- Read or watch TV before falling asleep
You probably built your bedtime routine over time as you discovered what worked to fit your lifestyle and you probably do it automatically without thinking about it. Because you’ve followed that same routine, over time, your brain and your body come to expect it and associate it with sleep.
Setting up routines around your writing will work in the same way. Your brain and your body will associate your routines with getting ready to write and making progress on your book. There are many routines you could implement to set yourself up for success with your book project, but I believe there are four routines essential for nonfiction authors:
- Start the Day or Morning Routine
- Writing Routine
- Reader Outreach Routine
- End of Day routine
We’ll explore these in more detail in later posts but first, I want to share the value of creating routines.
Why Are Routines So Powerful?
Routines can be a powerful tool once you recognize their importance. Routines calm your brain by helping you know what to expect. When you’re not sure what’s going to happen in a given situation, you engage your brain’s flight or fight reflex. A routine gives your brain a sense of control and frees up space for creative thinking and better concentration.
Creating routines with specific repeatable actions helps us focus instead of wasting our limited time resources. For example, if you don’t have a routine to follow for each writing session, you could spend fifteen minutes or more gathering your supplies, finding your document on your computer, looking for your headphones if you want to listen to music while you write, and on and on. After you’ve done all that, you then have to convince yourself to start writing,
If you want to finish your book, you will need to regularly repeat the actions that will make it easier. Once you’ve created a routine and committed to it, quite often the actions you are repeating will become second nature.
You won’t have to think about taking action, you will just do it! On top of that, the more you do something, the better you get at it. By its very nature, a routine promotes excellence in completing a task.
How can Routines Help Writers?
Here’s an example of a routine that applies to someone writing a book. Traditional advice given to writers is to set a goal of writing a certain number of words each day. I work with nonfiction authors and we typically have a goal of writing 40,000 words in their first draft. If they’re able to average writing 600 words per day, they can complete their first draft in 90 days.
That works really well for authors who have a deadline such as an event or conference where they want to sell their book. There’s an outside motivation for them to stick to the daily writing goal.
If they don’t have an industry event, I encourage them to announce and book a venue for their book launch. That’s another way to make the writing goal a priority. But many times there isn’t an outside event scheduled or the client isn’t willing to make a commitment to a book launch date so there’s no pressure to stick to a daily word count target.
Even with an event, the author may start out motivated and writing every day, but can’t sustain the pace. Something happens to cause them to miss their daily word count and that leads to discouragement and less action. All of a sudden, several days, weeks, or months have passed and they haven’t written a word.
That’s where having a writing routine comes into play. Even the most successful writers can be derailed. When you study how they can consistently finish their book projects, you’ll find they almost always follow one or more routines to help them complete their book.
Maya Angelou had a strict routine that she followed each and every working day. It would start with a 6 am morning coffee with her husband. After that, they both headed off to work. She would go to a sparsely furnished room where she could focus on nothing but her passion. She would work until the afternoon (exact time depended upon how well things were going) and then meet up with her husband for a drink and dinner together. She goes on to say:
“We have a semblance of a normal life. We have a drink together and have dinner. Maybe after dinner I’ll read to him what I’ve written that day. He doesn’t comment. I don’t invite comments from anyone but my editor, but hearing it aloud is good.”
Maya Angelou
Even if writing isn’t your primary job, there are several takeaways from Ms. Angelou’s routine which I’ll go into more detail in a later post. We’ll also explore why we struggle with routines. We’ll look at the routines of some other famous nonfiction authors and I’ll give you some guidance on how to create your own powerful routines.
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