The best way to be consistent with your writing, and finish you book, is to develop a writing habit.
A habit is something that you do everyday, almost without controlling yourself. You crave to do it, and a may even start instinctually doing it when you just go on autopilot.
That’s what you need to do when you are a writer. Question is, how do you develop a writing habit?
In order to develop a writing habit, you need to first adopt a writer identity, and then use the Atomic Habit rules to create a habit; make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and finally, make it satisfying.
This can be done by changing your physical environment, changing the way you represent yourself to people so they see you as a writer. After this, you need to create a surrounding that will support your writing habits, and discourage procrastination habits, and distractions. When these are done, you will see that you can’t help but feel pressured to write.
This is a mouthful, and I swear, I will break it it down. First, we will cover how to develop a writer identity, then we will cover how to make it obvious, make it easy, make it attractive, make it easy and finally, how to make it satisfying.
1 Create A Writer Identity (REWRITE THIS ONE WHEN PUTTING IN PICTURES. EASY)
The first step to building a daily habit is to build a writer identity.
When we associate a habit or behavior with our state of being, we are more likely to do that habit out of necessity. This is why it can be hard for people to stop smoking because they would say things like ‘I am quitting smoking’. The problem with such as statement is that it assumes you are a smoker who is quitting.
A better statement would be something like ‘I do not smoke’. This takes on the identity of a person who is not a smoker, which helps.
So what physical steps can you take to be a writer?
Start introducing yourself as a writer. When in a conversation, ask people their opinions on writing, and steer the conversation in the direction of writing. Then, you will notice people will start calling you to show you something about a book, or ask you about it.
When people start to treat you like a writer, it will create a feed back look that cements the writer identity for you to grow.
Further physical steps you can take are…
2. Change the environment so that writing habit more accommodated
The second step to building a writing habit is to change your environment so that it is more conducive to writing.
This is a make it obvious step.
This does not mean you not mean you have to go renovating your house. The thing is, our environments are usually not conducive to writing. Our friends are always running around the room, the laptop is full of movies to be watched, and books to be read later, and there is always something that needs to be done.
This means that as you sit down to write, your mind is on something else, and as you write, you are thinking of something else you will have to do when done.
To change this, you could open straight to the writing document. Then you could leave your laptop on your writing space.
Every night, I sleep with the laptop open directly on the line I will be boring on. Also, I close all other documents on the laptop, and may even fix the place up as if I intend to sit. I do the same thing as I leave the house, or go anywhere.
What this does is it signals to all your friends that you will be writing soon, because they see you walking around your writing space, and they know you never want to be disrupted when you work there.
This means when the time you’ve set to write arrives, you can excuse yourself, and they will not be caught of guard.
3. Add a writing space to practice your writing habit
The third step to building a writing habit is to adding a writing space to your room.
This is a make it obvious step.
The writing space is best explained in this article, where we go over the benefits, and the steps to building one. In summary, a writing space helps you with consistency, since whenever you get to a writing space, your mind gets in the mood of writing.
Add on top of that this article on how to make time to write your book, and you will have yourself a killer combo.
The short and dirty of it is, to your writing space needs to be a place that you can sit in for hours. This can be a table, but there are authors who write laying on the concrete floor. It all depends on you.
On top of that, you may want to add things that make it fun to be there, like a pleasant smell, food, and music. Be careful with music. It’s better to use an album, which you can’t skip. So listen to an 80s greatest Motown hits on youtube or something like that.
Usually, you’ll hear a song you like. I tend to se Whitney Houston (favorite song is ‘Saving all my love for you’), Luther Vandross (favorite song is ‘I know’), and Noah Jones (favorite song in the album is ‘Don’t know why’).
You can listen to one song repeatedly if you wish, and this s best when it is a song that disappears into the background for you. So more ballads. My preferred one is Adele’s cover of Make You Feel My Love. But you can choose anything you want.
4. Prepare physically for it, like going to work, to assist preparing for your writing habit
The fourth step to building a habit is to physically prepare yourself as if you are going to work whenever you are about to write.
There is a reason that we sometimes wake up on Saturday, and dress for school, only to remember we stopped going to school 8 years ago.
It’s because that physical process of dressing, eating, and going out is something that can be hardwired into your mind. Also, there is a theory that when people where uniforms, they tend to work more consistently then people dressed casually.
Therefore, you should try to have a set of clothes that you wear every time you write. It can be sweat clothes too, or a formal suit.
As long as it is not the same clothes that you wear when you are just lounging around at your home. When you are done writing, put your clothes away. Also, this wearing of clothes helps to reaffirm your writer identity as mentioned in the Alter Ego effect.
Also, it is something Stephen King does, physically going somewhere else to write like he is going to work. So, you should give it a go to.
5. Do something you like, while doing the writing habit
The 5th step to making the habit stick is to combine it with another habit that you enjoy.
This is part of making it attractive.
You will notice that this is similar to how to develop a writing space, because it is. When you are trying to build a habit, it will feel clunky at first, but you can make your habit attractive by mixing it with another habit you already do.
Hopefully, one that does not take too much concentration. Such a habit would either be a listening habit, or an eating habit. You could do both at the same time if you wish.
Listen to music as you write, but keep what I said above in mind. Eat something you like. Maybe sweets, fries, or bacon. Finally, you could also listen to something like ASMR, which I am listening to as I write this article.
I am currently sitting in my writing space, listening to Ray Charles Greatest hits (waiting for ‘Let it Be’), and listening to Leemur ASMR. Perfect combination to get me going.
6. Reward yourself when you are done to encourage the writing habit
The sixth step is to make sure you always reward yourself when you finish your writing.
The problem that writers can make when they learn these things is exploiting themselves.
They realize they have a hack, and can write for a long time, so they continue writing, waiting to start feeling tired, or demotivated. You never will again. Instead, you will find you concentration starting to lack whenever you think about writing.
This is your bodies way of reminding you to pay it back for listening to you, and allowing you to manipulate it.
So reward yourself.
This mean when the 3 hours is up, stop writing. Even if you feel like it. Unfortunately, this past weekend, I kept writing. But that’s because I had pt writing aside to do assignments at school. Under normal circumstances, I always go out clubbing on Fridays, and Saturdays.
I reward myself by being with my friends, and having a fun time with them and some great friends. I may even have to be carried home afterwards, but I deserved it. Whatever reward looks like for you, do it.
Sometimes, this can be just a break, but it can be more. You could watch a TV show, read books, or play games. Just make sure you reward yourself for all your efforts, and you will feel a strong desire to put in more effort.
7. Write only a few pages at a time, with deep work
The seventh step is to only write a few pages.
This one is a make it easy stage.
When you begin your habit creation, write what feels easy to you. Too easy, and you’ll be bored. To hard, you’ll be frustrated and you will not want to do it anymore. However, this is relative.
For me, too easy felt like just a paragraph, but as time went on, it grew to be a page. Soon, I could write 6 pages a day, and that felt too easy.
The same goes for you.
Pick a quantity you feel easy to write, and for that day, write that quantity. When you are done, stop. Even if you feel like writing more, do not.
Instead, use progressive overload weekly. Meaning next week, double your last weeks efforts, and keep doing that, until you do something that feels to hard. Then get back to the half, and stick to that.
8. Make it hard not to do the work
The seventh step to creating a habit is to make it hard to not do the work.
This is the make it easy part. There is a better article I wrote that would help you with procrastination. In summary, if you want to adopt a habit, make it easy. if you want to drop one, make it hard.
When you are not writing, you are not doing nothing. You are usually doing something unproductive. First, identify that unproductive thing you do. Then, make it harder for you to do that unproductive thing.
In order to do this, download appblock so it can track the things you do. or you could just go about your day normally, and write down what you are doing every 2 hours (set an alarm).
Then, make it harder to do those unproductive things. Such as leaving them far away from you. Or blocking them away with a password.
9. Write how much time you intend to work in
The ninth step to building a habit is to change your goals to something more doable.
Most of the time, you focus on word count.
I advise against having a minimum word count. Instead, focus on having a time count. Set an amount of time you can work on the book, and sit down to work on the book that whole time.
Now, this may surprise you since I mentioned that you must try to make the pages something that you find easy. So what if you write your page, and have an hour left.
Do you remain at your writing space? Yes. You can now work on the outline of your book, the worldbuilding bible, and somethings that will need to be added to the story.
10. Get a calendar
The tenth step to building a writing habit is creating a writing calendar.
I have an article that perfectly details just what a writing calendar is and how to build one, so check that one out.
For now, just understand that when you do have a writing calendar, on top of just have more time to write, you will also have the mechanism of check out these dates, and these time spots that have been allocated. I do not know if there is anything more satisfying then crossing out these things on the writing calendar.
EXTRA TIP: Remember to set the writing dates to the day, not the date. So choose between Monday to Sunday, not on the numbers like 25th of March. This is so that it can be repetitive.
11. Make it visible
The eleventh step to building a writing habit is to make it visible.
Remember to paste the printed calendar on the wall. The constant reminder helps a lot. This is why I always advise you guys print things out.
If you were to see my room, you’d think I’m some sort of detective. Having things pasted on the wall allows you to be more productive than you normally are.
12 Give yourself an ultimate reward
The thirteenth step to take is to give yourself ultimate rewards.
When you manage to finish a week, or so of your writing calendar, having written the whole day, reward yourself in a massive way.
You could dress up, and make space for yourself at a restaurant, then go an eat there. Or go bungee jumping. Or go sky diving. My personal favorite is to drive out to the beach, and stay at the hotel for like 3 days.
This is awesome, and it makes you feel extremely good for having taken care of yourself.
When you finally complete building your writing your writing habit, its hard to quantify just how massive your leap to mastering mastery will be.