In 2021, I quit my teaching career to follow my dreams of becoming/being a writer.

What did that look like going from a highly scheduled routine to a writing routine?

As you can imagine, it took some trial and error to get to a daily writing routine that felt sustainable. And what I have found is that my perfect writing routine is one where I work on my projects full time, from 9am-5pm Monday thru Friday, until they are finished (this varies depending on the project, a novel can take months as you can imagine).

Then, I take some time off to work on other projects and decompress so I can fill up my creative reserves (i.e. building my business over on Teachers Pay Teachers, building my reader/author Instagram page, etc.) until it’s time for the next novel.

And, in the midst of all of that, I committed to consistently publishing a blog post every Saturday morning, which means that I am, at the very least, writing weekly.

At first, creating a consistent writing practice was about getting words on the page, but it ultimately taught me about the importance of relying on discipline, ignoring doubt, and continuing to show up.

My writing practice makes me feel like a writer.

The Importance of Building Discipline

Some days I DO NOT feel like writing.

The ideas aren’t flowing. I feel creatively stuck. I’m tired. I have a migraine. I have lost motivation. The list goes on and on.

Some days I allow myself to take the loss. If the mental health is really mental healthing, then it is sometimes best to step away so you can come back to your writing with fresh eyes.

However, a few of the biggest lessons that have kept me committed to my writing practice are:

• Motivation is a fickle mistress. You cannot rely on her.
• Give your project 10 minutes. If at the end of 10 minutes you want to stop, then stop.
• Just write forward. You can fix it later.

The second and third ones really help when the first one has gone on vacation.

Writing a story, whether it’s a novel or a flash fiction piece or a poem is a massive undertaking. The pressure can feel incredibly heavy and overwhelming: a.k.a. the perfect recipe for motivation to suddenly go MIA.

However, I have found that if I open my project and give myself ten minutes, that somehow feels doable. It’s only ten minutes. And if I still feel like writing beyond that, then I write beyond that.

And if the words are struggling to come out the way I want them to, I simply keep reminding myself, “Your only job is to write forward.” The zero/first draft doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be finished.

My “ten minute rule” coupled with my “just write forward” mantra have helped me grow my discipline muscle when it comes to my writing routine because they are achievable goals that alleviate the pressure of perfection.

I can write for ten minutes and that’s good enough.

I can write the crappiest chapter, but I still wrote forward…and can fix it during rewrites.

It’s all about finding sustainable consistency. And this is what worked to keep me committed to my projects every single day.

But then there’s that other D word that likes to show up to the party.

The Importance of Ignoring Doubt

Some days I wonder if I made a mistake putting my whole ass soul into my dreams of becoming a writer.

Doubt likes to sneak in there and say, No one is reading your work. No one is ever going to read your work. No agents are ever going to want your novel. And even if they did, you’ll probably have to give back the advance.

Doubt. What a b.

Slogging through rejection after rejection can be trying, heartbreaking.

But I keep going, even when the doubt gets loud.

I don’t know how this all turns out, and I don’t pretend to. But I would spend the rest of my life regretting if I didn’t at least try.

During a therapy session, my therapist actually asked me, “What happens if you never get an agent?”

I thought on that for a minute, a bit hurt that she said that because who wants to consider the worst case scenario when you rearranged your entire life to pursue your biggest dreams.

My response: “I don’t know. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

If there is one thing I know for certain, it’s that I will keep writing stories no matter what. If an agent doesn’t pick up this one, then maybe they will pick up the next one.

Doubt loves to try to make me believe that I only have a limited supply of story ideas in me, but I have a lifetime of evidence to prove that’s not true.

And, if we really look at doubt, when we take the mean girl mask off of her and see her for what she really is, she’s just fear. And she’s just trying to protect us. From loss. From heartbreak. From grief.

But doubt is not the truth. She’s not coming from a place of peaceful, intuitive knowing. She wants you to give up before you’ve even started.

Which is why: ignoring doubt is an act of resistance. Defy her or live your life wondering what would have happened if.

For me, I’d much rather fall on my face a million times than wonder what would have happened if I’d taken the risk.

The Importance of Continuing to Show Up

Continuing to show up for myself, my dreams, and my writing has been life changing.

When I first left teaching, and people would ask me what I did for a living, I’d say in this little mumbly whisper, “I’m a writer.”

For so long I’d been led to believe that you’re only a writer if you’re published or agented or someone is paying you to do it.

THAT’S NOT TRUE.

You are a writer if you write. Period. End of sentence.

And it is this belief that has built my confidence in myself and my writing ten fold. I am a writer because I write. But I am also a writer because I continue to show up for my writing, which has yielded the most interesting personal development of all.

I’ve always been a writer, but when I was a teacher, my writing was more sporadic. I didn’t really have the time to give to it the way I really wanted to and so it kind of stayed the same. It was fine. I was a good enough writer, but I never saw much progress.

And then I committed to my writing. I continued to show up for it. And let me tell you, the change in my writing style and voice over time has been incredible.

I’m rewriting my first novel now (written initially in 2020), and the writer I was then has a completely different voice than the writer I am now. I have a better grasp on story beats and pacing. Even my non-fiction writing has improved.

I used to do this really annoying thing in my non-fiction writing where I’d tell a whole story and then toward the end do the whole “but then”, which was where I would insert the lesson I’d learned from the experience I was writing about. I hated the way it sounded, but I didn’t know how to fix it.

Solution: I fixed it by continuing to show up to my writing every day.

That’s all it takes to improve. Just keep showing up.

We’ve Got This

Committing to a writing practice was initially about finishing my novel but ended up being about so much more. It taught me that discipline will get you farther than motivation, you just have to keep showing up.

And I have learned that no amount of creative self-doubt will stop me from being a writer because writing is my heart. It’s in me. No one can take away something that is the fabric of who  you are.

And remember, you don’t have to quit your job and become a full time writer to be a writer.

Get gritty with it, my friends.

That’s the recipe that gets your first novel written, your first story published, and your voice fine tuned.

What have your creative habits taught you? Do you have a routine that you love? Let me know in the comments!

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