Tag: writing routines

Switching Things Up When Life Changes

Motivation and the Writing Life, Uncategorized

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the writing life over the years, is that I have my best results in terms of productivity if I can be flexible.

Flexibility with when and where I write makes a tremendous difference.  And it’s been something I had to accept right off the bat because I was writing with a toddler in the house circa 2003.

The funny thing is that I’m ordinarily one of the least-flexible people I know.  When plans change in the morning, I’m flustered. I have to carefully think through all the ways that the change of plans impacts all the other moving parts of that particular day.  Frequently, it’s like a domino effect.

But with writing, I’ve come to accept that change happens. It happened when my younger child went off to elementary school.  It happened when my two children (very quickly) weren’t in the same school anymore and I was driving two carpools. It happened when they started to drive themselves. And lately, it happened with an empty nest, child-wise…and a fuller nest now that my husband has a new job where he’s based from home, too.

Here are my tips for trying to work through changes in a household experiencing a lot of transitions: Continue reading

Adapting Writing Routines

Motivation and the Writing Life, Uncategorized

Bird leaving the empty nest.

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig 

It’s kind of interesting when you’ve been blogging as long as I have. Recently, I looked back over some of the posts from 2009 and 2010.  My writing routine was very different back then and definitely something that was a work in progress. My guest post on Kaye Barley’s Meanderings and Muses blog explains how best to entertain children and get writing done (hint: bring their friends along).

In fact, many of my posts involved writing on the go.  I learned to be very flexible with when and where I wrote…the whole point was to meet my goals however I could manage it.

It was, honestly, a crazy time.  I was under contract for a couple of different series to Penguin and working on a 3rd for myself.  My day, however, was very structured around my children’s activities and school days.  I fit my writing around my children and it worked out really well.Continue reading

Writing Routines: Rethinking What Works

Motivation and the Writing Life

An old-fashioned alarm clock is pictured on the right side of the picture and the post title, Writing Routines: Rethinking What Works is on the left.

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Routines are wonderful–until they’re not.

I’m a very routine-driven writer. Actually, I’m routine-driven, period.  I’m a lot more productive when I can keep my malfunctioning brain out of my process…if I run on automatic pilot.

I think my changing routines will resonate with any writing parents.

When I had small children, my routine was to write while my son was in elementary school and my daughter was either watching Elmo’s World (she’d only watch 5 minutes of television) or napping.  I’d get my daughter settled and then open up my laptop.

This worked well–until it didn’t.  My daughter stopped taking naps, but she started with preschool. I could write (and do a million other things) while she was in school.

That, naturally, didn’t stay the routine for very long.  Before I knew it, both of my children were in school and I was fitting in writing and editing and building an online platform for myself in between carpools and errands and other things.

Soon they were in different schools with different hours of operation. This meant a couple of different carpools.  I learned to write while in carpool lines.

When they grew older and got up very early for school (the high school late bell is 7:20), I got up an hour before they did to work while the day was still fresh and full of possibilities.  I found that, sometimes, days could be knocked dramatically off-course as the day went on.

We got a new corgi puppy on Friday. :)  I have a feeling that, once again, my morning routines are going to be changing.

A tri-color corgi puppy named Finn who belongs to author Elizabeth Spann Craig.
Finn

The point is that it’s good to evaluate what works every now and then. I used to think very self-limiting things: I can only work well in the mornings. But then I found the more flexible I could be with my schedule and my writing, the more I could get accomplished.

Over the years, I’ve asked myself:

Besides first thing in the morning (which always works for me), when else can I fit in writing time?

Am I too distracted at home?  If so, is the library or a coffee shop better?

If I write later in the day, how does it go? Is it a good or a bad draft?

Do you ever change up what works? Has anyone else had dramatic changes in what works for them?

Writing routines: re-evaluating what works: Click To Tweet

 

Photo credit: Βethan via Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-ND

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