Developing Your Writing Practice

As we start this new year, I’m sure a lot of writers are contending with resolutions to write more. But before you throw yourself whole hog into a new routine or schedule and end up burnt out, consider taking a moment to think about your approach first. In this post, I’ll share my thoughts on how to frame your goals so they are manageable and sustainable.

In this post:

• Habits & routines

• Schedules & word counts

• Finding community

• Mental health hygiene

• Creative consumption time

• A quick note about format

Habits & routines

Maybe this will sound controversial, but I think that at the bane of nearly every writer’s existence is the idea of the writing regimen. This idea that you’re going to be able to perfectly stick to your writing practice every time and hit your targets no matter what. Sometimes folks think the more rigid and disciplined they are, the more likely they will be to succeed.

From personal experience, as someone who has faced challenges in the past when establishing my own practice, the more rigid I’ve tried to be, the less likely I am to succeed. This mindset that you have to hit that target every time in order to be successful can be limiting and even dangerous, especially when you ascribe a lot of value to your ability to do so. It can even harm your self-esteem in the long run. This can be especially true for neurodivergent folks, but I think it’s a lesson all of us can stand to benefit from.

There are a lot of examples of writing regimens out there, from both peers and famous authors of yore, which we almost inevitably compare ourselves to. Looking at these can be inspiring, but some are downright discouraging if we get stuck on the idea that we’re supposed to emulate any one specific approach.

As with any habit or routine, a consistent writing practice can take time to build. And it’s important to listen to your brain and body while you’re doing it. When we make a new year’s resolution, for instance, we often throw ourselves into it with gusto at the beginning and fail to maintain the habit later on. Dr. Faye Begeti (@the_brain_doctor) has written about this very topic. Intensity is not what gets us closer to our goals—consistency is. The thing about focusing on consistency first is that intensity will be able to follow in a sustainable way.

Like any muscle, writing is something that needs to be exercised over a long period of time. You can add weight to it once you’re comfortable, but if you do too much at once, you’re likely to fail and make your next attempts even harder.

Schedules & word counts

As I said, there are a lot of examples of writing schedules or even daily word count targets out there, especially when it comes to writers of fiction. Looking at them, they swing wildly between a low and a high level of output. But that’s not the whole story.

In the list I’ve linked above, Dorothy Parker is noted as having a word count target of five words a day. On the other end of the spectrum we have Michael Crichton, who supposedly averaged 10,000. At first blush, both ends of the spectrum seem a little wild for different reasons, but they tell us something important. The word averages listed are unique to their authors. Instead of looking solely at the output of each, consider that each of these targets might require a different kind or level of effort depending on the author, or that the author’s circumstances and time to focus on writing differ between them.

If you know you could sit down and hammer out 3,000 words in one sitting, then this advice is probably not relevant. But if you’re only able to make that kind of effort every once in a blue moon and you actually want to be more consistent in your practice, you might want to reexamine 3,000 words as a goal.

Take Ernest Hemingway, for instance. In the same article I linked, it lists his average as 500 words a day. To some that might not seem like a lot, but let’s dig into his approach. The article quotes him as stopping at a place where he knows what happens next and, funnily enough, he says that the hardest part of the regimen is waiting to write again. By sticking to a manageable amount and not completely draining himself of creativity at each sitting, he’s energized to keep coming back again and again.

For another example, Ursula Le Guin had a writing schedule that has become quite well known in writers’ circles. Between the pithy descriptions of her activities, you might notice that she has scheduled a little under five hours of writing time. Considering the typical, North American 9–5 job, this might seem to fall a bit short in terms of how we often view productivity. But obviously, it worked for Le Guin, and it’s hard to argue with the results when looking at her extensive bibliography.

Of course, these writers had the benefit of having writing as a full-time job—a privilege many of us do not share—but we can still take lessons from their approach. Maybe five hours a day isn’t doable for you alongside other life priorities, but five minutes might be. Or maybe a couple hours each week or each month. Regardless of when or how much, the point is to build a practice that is supportive of you and enables you to keep plugging away over time.

I’ve found this to work wonders for myself. For my new project, I sit down to write for three hours each Friday, and sometimes on the weekend. Even though it’s not every day, I’m much farther along now than I would have been with any of my old mindsets. With those, I likely would have spent far more time brooding about not writing than actually just doing it.

So, if you were to ask me what word count you should be aiming for, or what the ideal writing schedule is, I would encourage you to look inward and ask yourself what’s reasonable. Pick something you know you can do handily, then stop. You’re more likely to build up excitement and momentum if you can see that you’re making consistent progress over a long period of time.

Finding community

I’m always going to advocate for finding community as a writer. It’s been the key to success when it comes to achieving my goals.

In real-life conversations, I tend to find it hard to talk about myself and what I’m working on, but finding trusted friends who understand and encourage that passion has been game changing. It’s especially great when you can find a writing group where it’s the expectation that you’re going to talk about your project.

And as I said, I’ve been writing each week for the past little while. I doubt I’d be able to do so if I wasn’t meeting up with a writing buddy. Of course life comes up sometimes and things need to be rescheduled, but knowing there’s someone else in it with me really helps get me over that inertia when picking things back up again. More often than not, a single three-hour session gets me jazzed up to keep going and sometimes that’s just what I do, though I’m careful not to make it an expectation for myself.

So find people who fuel you and tell them what you’re trying to do. Ask them to check in with you if that’s helpful, or maybe even just set some time aside so you can each work on your own thing.

Mental health hygiene

During all of this, it is essential to take care of yourself first and foremost. No one can produce from an empty cup, or at least, it’d be awfully painful if they try to.

The old-school idea of an artist having to suffer for their art has never sat well with me. If I’m going to create something, I want to do it from a place of joy and let that joy permeate my work (even if the mood or atmosphere happens to be incongruent at times). It’s how I know I’ll be able to keep producing good work over time.

So first things first, don’t beat yourself up if you don’t quite reach your goals. Use those moments as an opportunity to check in with yourself, see how you’re feeling and adjust if necessary. The only thing we’ll get from banging our head against a wall is bruised.

And if you really need time apart from your work, take it. If you have good accountability partners, they’ll surely understand the situation, especially if you’re taking time in service of being able to come back rejuvenated. As I say, life happens, and we shouldn’t try to cram it back into some imaginary box when it does. It’s only likely to explode on us later.

Lastly, if your writing topics happen to be heavy, don’t overlook the impact this can have on your well-being. If you’re affected by your work in such a way, actively processing it by journaling or talking to a trusted counsellor is essential.

Creative consumption time

One other note I wanted to make about Le Guin’s writing schedule is that after lunch she has noted down time for reading and music. Two hours of it actually. And while that could seem to just be relaxing time (and I imagine it would be, at least partially), it also achieves something else.

Besides the well that makes up our mental health, those of us who produce art have another well to take care of: that of creativity. And it can run dry just the same as any other.

So yes, reading other work, listening to music, watching television or movies—all of it counts towards your writing practice. Not only will exposing yourself to other people’s ideas and perspectives broaden your horizons and keep your knowledge up-to-date (especially if consuming media in your chosen genre), seeing how other people tackle certain creative problems will enrich your own skills.

Le Guin might have had a little under five hours of active writing time in her schedule, but it was supplemented by time to refill her creative well.

A quick note about format

As with all writing practices, sometimes we need to adjust our approach. I’ve mentioned before that this blog, while enormously fun and gratifying to write, takes a fair bit of time on my end to put together. I’ve previously adjusted my scheduling and now I’m looking into formatting changes.

At the moment I’m looking into how I can include an audio element, which also means this blog may end up being a little more conversational. (Although, honestly, I hope it’s already fairly conversational/approachable!)

I also try to keep in mind good accessibility practices with any work I produce, so I’ll be including a transcript (essentially the body of the blog as it is now) along with the audio file. And of course, if you have any suggestions or requests with formatting, I’d love to hear them. You can always leave a comment below or shoot me an email at marykehoe@elixireditorial.ca.

See you next time!

Mary Kehoe provides structural, stylistic and copy editing services for a variety of written works through her agency, Elixir Editorial. From time to time she dabbles in her own writing projects which tend toward the speculative genre.

She is a member of both Editors Canada and the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), as well as a founding member and former chair of the Toronto Arts & Letters Club writing group. A longtime lover of the English language, Mary is passionate about supporting writers on the journey to inspire the world.