5 Rituals and Routines That Changed My Writing Life

I recently read an online article called "5 Rituals and Routines That Changed My Writing Life" and it was fascinating and thought-provoking, so I thought I'd share it with you.

The reason why this article was inspiring for me is because I've spent the last couple of weeks working on a new responsive layout for my Cheriton House Publishing website. And because I'm not really up to date with webpage design (it's incredibly complicated these days) the whole process is taking me a lot longer than I thought. It's also been holding me back from getting my writing done.

I keep telling myself that this is only a temporary set back and once the website is finished, I can get back to my usual writing.

And I think that's why this article struck a cord with me, because I've been letting my writing slide quite a bit lately and that doesn't make me happy at all. But this article prompted me to start writing again every day AND gave me a way to do it.

One of the first things it said is that it's no good wanting to make money from your writing and then deciding that you can only write when you "feel inspired" (or in my case, have the time to write). That will just keep you doing nothing and being broke.

Instead it said "Finding success as a writer requires you to be intentional about your writing. To do things with purpose."

What this means is that you need to get serious about being a writer and use rituals and routines that get you writing every day and taking your writing seriously instead of treating it like a hobby.

And that entails acting "as if" which means acting as though you already have a best selling book.

What would you do every day if you were already a best selling author? Would you spend your time on social media or playing computer games all day, or would you be busy promoting your book?

See the difference in those two mindsets?

My two best takes from this article were:

Write before you do anything else every day

and

Write 5 days a week.

So even if I only sit and write for an hour and then get on with other things, no matter what else I do, my writing is done.

And if I do this every day (5 days a week) then that's a lot of writing. Although I usually only write for 4 days a week and have a long weekend. But even 4 days of writing can create a huge output.

So that is what I'm going to do from now on.

No matter what other projects I have to do (book cover design, webpage design, formatting, editing, etc) I won't do it until I've done my writing. Even if it means only spending an hour or two writing every morning.

How about you?

What are you going to do to write more every day?

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Writing Rituals

Write faster and make
more money by learning the productivity skills
of professional writers.
How much of your "writing time"
is lost to writer's block and procrastination?

How many hours do you lose simply
because you are not staying tightly
focused on your writing?

And how much more would you earn if
your writing productivity increased by
25%, 50% or even 100%?