Writing Rituals

Writing is a ritual—after you’ve set the space, lit the candles, and checked the star charts you’re ready to begin.

Snoopy always tried to write on top of his doghouse. Right out there in the wind and the rain with that pesky Woodstock looking over his shoulder. No wonder he tore out so many pages and started over! 

There’s only so much distraction I can handle too. 

Over the years I’ve figured out what works for my writing routine. My brain is the most creative and productive in the morning. The kitchen must be clean—there’s likely some wise parallel there, but I can’t make it out. And a quick, deep-breathing meditation to set my intentions and I’m off! 

No, my writing routine doesn’t guarantee a high word count or even high quality words. But having it puts me in the appropriate mindset for the best possible writing session I’m capable of that day. 

Have you worked out a writing routine? 

If you have’t, and you want to start one, I suggest tracking your writing time. Like Jeffe, I like spreadsheets. When I started I tracked time of day, word count, type of writing (1st draft vs editing, etc.), and number and length of breaks. That data helped me narrow down my most productive hours and writing stint length, so I know when I need to stand up and stretch or get some water.  

Understanding how your brain works is another tool you can add to your writing tool-kit. And we can all use helpful tools. Happy writing!

What Jeffe Has to Have in Order to Write

Greetings from a gorgeous autumn in New Mexico!

This week at the SFF Seven we're talking about preconditions - what must be true before you go to write.

I changed it from "sit to write" because I don't sit - I work at a walking desk. So, that's one thing for me, is that I'm happiest standing or walking to write. I've gotten so sitting to write doesn't work very well. In fact, I'm super happy to have hit on a solution of a portable tripod and desktop to make a standing desk for a retreat I'm going on after Thanksgiving. I can stand to write! Perfect solution.

Otherwise... 

It used to be that I had fairly elaborate rituals for getting into writing. I had LOTS of preconditions. I had to be sitting at a certain desk (not my work-from-home desk) at a specific time of day (morning) listening to a particular soundtrack (The Mission). I even had a favorite blue jersey dress I had to be wearing. When my husband, with considerable exasperation, pointed out that the dress had more holes than fabric, he countered my plaintive argument that I needed it, by saying "the writing comes from you, not the dress."

That's really stuck with me. I remind myself of that truth often. 

(And I put the dress in the rag pile.)

All of those rituals helped me in the beginning, when I really needed help establishing a writing habit. But now I know they were just things to help me along. Because the writing comes from me. 

The only precondition I have? Myself, present and accounted for.

 

The Drive to Develop a Writing Practice

Look for the cover reveal for SHADOW WIZARD, book one in Renegades of Magic, the new trilogy continuing the Bonds of Magic epic tale! I'm getting the preorders set up today and plan to do the cover reveal on Instagram tomorrow, August 11, 2022. Members of my private Facebook group, Jeffe's Closet, may get a sneak peek ;-)

This week at the SFF Seven, we're asking: how has your writing practice changed over time?

It's interesting because the topic-suggester framed it as "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" - my college French demanded I get the saying correct - which is a French saying that acknowledges that the more things change, the more they stay the same. In other words, that surface details may alter over time, but the essence of the thing, the recognizable cycle of events, is fundamentally inalterable. Often it's applied to history. So this suggests that our writing practice may change over time, but it also stays the same. Is this this case?

I'm saying no, at least for me. My writing practice has changed considerably since my newbie days. I was reflecting recently that, as a teen and young woman, I didn't really know how to apply myself to improving at a task. This largely came from the fact that, in school all the way through high school, I could get by without really trying. I had a good auditory and visual memory, and I tested well, so I didn't need to work hard to get A's. (Except in math, which I thought I wasn't good at, even though they put me in accelerated math classes. Turns out I likely wasn't good at it because I didn't like math, so I didn't listen in class. Oops.) In college and grad school, a number of professors began riding me to apply myself, to study and do the practice problems. I kind of tried to - especially when I had to retake Immunology for my biology major and really didn't want to have to retake second semester of organic chemistry - but there was a major problem: I didn't know how to study.

I remember thinking I needed to learn how to study, but I was mostly flailing about. It was only when I had novel deadlines to meet that I got very good at refining my ability to work in concentrated ways, incrementally, day after day. I don't often think of messages I'd like to give to my younger self, but I now wish I could advise that college student, that graduate student, to develop the habit of working for a couple of hours every morning. This is my best brain time. If I had done that in school, if I had spent just that much time working practice problems and reviewing the material, I likely would have done much better.

Of course, then I might have ended up as a research scientist after all, when I'm so happy as a novelist. Maybe it took working on something I truly cared about to inspire me to develop the practice to do it. Que sera, sera!

Writer Fashion: Contradiction in Terms?

     

This week's oxymoronic topic is Writer fashion. Is it a contradiction in terms?

Okay, okay - that's me being a smartass. The subtitle actually asks: What do you – or don’t you! - wear to write?

I don't know about you guys, but I live in a house with a lot of windows, because I like to be able to see out. (On a total aside, I think people either like to see out of their houses or worry about being seen. I like to see out, but I'm also not gonna walk around naked.) I've been working from home for more than fifteen years, longer than I've been a fulltime writer. And, now that I am a fulltime writer, I work from home exclusively. I don't like to write in cafes, etc. And my work day consists of podcasting, actual writing, and business peripheral to writing, including volunteering for SFWA. 

All of this is to say that what I wear to write is pretty much... what I wear, full stop.

It used to be, when I had the day job, that I switched out what I wore, to help delineate writing time from day job time. Now it's all writing time! 

But I don't wear pajama pants, nor do I do the "Pantsless" thing. (Frankly I don't get when women join in with the guys talking about going pantsless - isn't this just a dress? Maybe it depends on how long your shirt is...) 

Anyway, I write while walking at a treadmill desk, so that drives most of my daily wardrobe decisions. My good walking shoes - and fave socks - are a must. Also I get warm after a few hours of walking. So, I wear a lot of sundresses. My favorite wardrobe item, to the point of being my uniform, is the Hary Dary original short strap dress, D12. In fact, I just bought TEN of them in various fabrics. Those combined with a cardigan or light jacket, along with various leggings and tank tops, form the bulk of what I wear, day in and day out.

Is it fashionable? Hard to say! But it works for me. 

Also, THE DRAGON'S DAUGHTER AND THE WINTER MAGE is out now!! Plus the rest of the Heirs of Magic series is on sale for a few more days! :-) 

     

My Ritual to Create Rituals

I don't know what it is about publishing a book, but every single time I do, some crisis descends, and the rituals, schedules, and discipline that got the book done and published get blown to hell. I have to reinvent my process all over again, accommodating whatever crisis has arisen this time. Can I have a ritual I'd *like* to leave behind? I nominate this one.

 

Usually rituals are lovely things designed to signal our brains that we're shifting out of our everyday world and into something other. I'm all for them. My office, when I had one, was filled with ritual items. Seriously. There's an altar in the southern window. A waterfall fountain. A salt lamp. Something to bring every element into my work space. Also - cat beds. Let's be realistic. I have long been expected to write whilst holding cat. That's more an imperative than a ritual. Book one was written in this office.

 

 I miss having a dedicated desk and office chair. That much is true. I miss all of the accoutrement that went with the great luxury of space. What I do NOT miss is the heating bill that went with this particular space and the fact that it was hell and gone from everywhere ever. So rituals of all kinds have fallen by the wayside. Desks gave way to the ergonomically egregious salon table, or to writing with my laptop in my lap. Book 2 was written with the laptop in my lap while I sat in the cockpit. Took weeks to unkink my neck and back.

 

Then I had to establish a new ritual, preferably a healthier one - that of riding in to the tea shop every day to write. Books three and five were written there while sipping various murky brews. Book four was written at the boat and while I waited during a long string of vet appointments when the eldest boy took ill. (He's now fine for a 17.5 year old with liver disease.)

 

But, on the heels of publishing book five and in the midst of writing book six, the tea shop can no longer be my go-to. I 100% regret the loss of that ritual, but it can't be helped. So here I am. Gritting my teeth in the center of the ritual that requires me to find a new ritual. Quite by accident, I may have found it earlier today. While waiting for the laundry in the Laundromat, I pounded out 800 words in an hour. Hush. For me, that's incredible. My point is that if this bears out, I may wear every last stitch of clothing out by washing them. Not sure how a Laundromat is germane to a historical fantasy, but what ever. Writing, man. The glamor never ends.

 

The One Writing Ritual I Wish I Still Had

Once upon a time I had writing rituals. No, wait, I still do. I'm a creature of habit.  What habit fell by the wayside over the last ten years of being a writer? The one I am most ashamed I've let slip. ~hangs head~

Reading regularly. 

The ritual used to be write 5 days, read 2 days. Write 5, read 2.  Never read the genre or sub-genre in which I was writing. Different genres--even non-fiction--were necessary to unclog creative paths and to allow my mind to explore strange rabbit holes.

Lately, I write every day, working on the same story. No breaks until the WiP is done. Trust me, that's not only a bad idea; it's worse in implementation. Especially since I write so slowly. It leads to work-avoidance, burnout, and obsessing over the wrong things.

The other reason I broke the habit? I'm not proud to say it's gotten harder and harder for me to park my "editor" mode when I pick up someone else's work. I've spent a lot of money on books that I cannot finish. I get angry at the author for not trying harder. I'm furious at the editor for not insisting on certain fixes. It's all the criticism I heap on myself being redirected at someone else's finished product. I got issues. I know.

Maybe I'll try to get back on the reading-regularly bandwagon in 2017. I miss it. Like that dear friend I keep meaning to call yet never do.

#BadAuthor

Treasured Writing Rituals I've Discarded

In honor of this week's topic -  a writing routine we used to depend on but changed and why - I dragged out this old photo of me at my very first book signing. That's January of 2004, when my essay collection, WYOMING TRUCKS, TRUE LOVE AND THE WEATHER CHANNEL, came out. I look so fresh-faced and excited. You can practically see the visions of sugarplums and lucrative multi-book contracts dancing in my head.

~pets past self~

That was before I'd even contemplated writing a novel, or really much fiction at all. And I had lousy writing habits. Actually, I take that back. I had no writing habits. Sure, I'd gone to getting up very early (4 or 5 am) and writing before the day job in the morning. But, in order to coax myself into writing at all, I'd allowed myself to write whatever I wanted to. I don't regret this choice - because it did get me writing - but that's why I ended up with lots and lots of essays. Hey, I ended up with an essay collection published by a university press, so it wasn't a bad thing at all.

But I needed to do better, particularly when I tried writing longer works.

So I developed rituals. I had a dedicated writing desk. (By then I worked the day job from home and, while I had a single room for my office, I had plenty of room for two desks.) I played certain music (the soundtracks of The Mission and Master and Commander were my go-to's.) I did all sorts of things - read the (small-town, very thin) newspaper. I wore certain clothes for writing and others for the day job. A few other things I can't even remember.

You know what? Those things totally worked. I highly recommend establishing rituals, because all of those things, done stepwise, put my mind into the state where the words could flow. They served as a cue to do *that* kind of work.

But I don't do any of them anymore. I prefer silence when I write. I have only one desk - because we live in a much smaller house and I only have room for one. (I write full-time now, but as recently as last fall I was still doing the day job from home and I simply set up two monitors on the one desk. I read most of my news online, but only later, when it won't distract me from writing.

You know why I gave up all those rituals?

I didn't need them anymore.

I didn't even deliberately give them up. They just kind of ... fell by the wayside. As my writing habit became a firmly entrenched part of my day, I started forgetting about the rituals. I just dove straight into writing.

I suspect that's one way of knowing when you've got it down.