The Construction and Care of the Writing Habit

Yesterday was a heck of a stressfest. My husband and I are dealing with the logistical challenges of an elderly family member's care (with its incumbent extended separations and myriad phone calls) and my son's routine car maintenance turned into Automotive Armageddon. I was fried by day's end, and I hadn't written one word.

But I'd checked in on a writer friend who's dealing with her own health issues and is one of the busiest folks I know. We talked a while before she said, "I have to go and get my 100 words in before I go out this evening."

It reminded me of one of the best strategies I've ever come across for building up the writing habit. Some years ago, a group of writers chatted about research that indicated it takes 100 consecutive days to fully establish a habit. They also decided that, as helpful as things like NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) can be for some folks, it's not realistically sustainable and the giant goal of crashing out a draft in a mere month scares off many people. So these writers formed a challenge e-mail loop to encourage each other to write at least 100 words per day (that's all!) for at least 100 days straight. At the end of each day, they checked in to report their success (and weren't allowed to brag about any quantity of words they wrote over 100, so as not to make the group competitive.)

Remembering all this (and that I'd been a member of such a group for a while) I hauled my weary self to the computer and said, "If she can crank out a hundred words this afternoon, so the heck can I. Then I can hang it up, veg on the couch, and watch an episode of BREAKING BAD."

Now here's the cool part. I didn't write just 100 words. I entered the slipstream of the story and did about five times that. It was still only a measly two pages, not much to show for a professional. But it's two pages more than I would've had if I'd given into my fatigue. Plus it was a great start on a scene I'm eager to flesh out today.

One of the gifts of giving oneself such a bite-sized goal is it tricks the writer's way past psychological resistance. For many of us (raising hand here) sitting down and getting started is the toughest part of the day.

But, as Newton teaches, once we overcome inertia, it's not so difficult to keep a body (and mind) in motion after all.

If you really want to write, this is something you can manage. Consider forming your own challenge group, or do what I've done and mark out each day's number of words on a calendar. (You can brag there all you want!) What you'll see is that over time, these lovely little successes lead to loftier achievements, and the creation of a habit that you won't want to give up!