5 Keys to Creating an (Almost) Daily Writing Habit & Getting Your Book Done!

 

Does the thought of writing a book overwhelm you? Do you have trouble carving a chunk of time out of your busy day to write? Is procrastination the only thing you do consistently? Then these five keys to creating a daily writing habit will help you to pour the book you want to write onto the page. And if you’d like some support writing your book, consider joining the 101 Day Book Writing Challenge on Facebook. It’s free to join, there's a free downloadable 150-page accountability journal, and together we can make 2019 the year you get your book written!!!

Here are the five golden keys:

1. Make a commitment

There’s a difference between a goal and a commitment. A goal is something specific you decide to do. While a commitment is the passionate sense of dedication you feel that keeps you glued to your goal, day after day after day, until it’s completed. 

Years ago, I woke up with these words dancing in my head:

     Without commitment, discipline is impossible.
     With commitment, discipline is inevitable.

It’s not enough to want to write a book, or even to decide to write every day, you have to be deeply committed to yourself and to your writing if you’re going to succeed.

2. Make a list of the top 10 reasons why you want to write this book

Keeping your commitment to write every day and get your book done is easier when you have strong and clear reasons for writing, both in general as well as for writing this particular book. It’s helpful to make a list of your top 10 reasons to write this book and keep it where you can refer to it often. (The worksheets for this come after the 5^th Key)

Your reasons will encompass five basic areas:

1. What writing means to you:
   What do you love most about writing? How do you feel when you’re writing? How important is it to you? And why is it important to you?
2. What you think creating a strong writing habit will give you:
   Do you think it will help you to write more easily? Will it help you to master the craft of writing? Will it help you to get the books you want to write finished and published?
3. What you want to share with the world through your writing:
   Nonfiction writers: What do you most want to teach? How do you want to help people and change their lives? Fiction writers: What do you most want to inspire people to feel and/or think about?
4. How you think writing this book will help or change you (personally and professionally):
   Will it mean honoring your dreams and desires? Living an authentic life? Will it help you to get clients or increase your income?
5. How you think this book will help or change others (personally and professionally):
   What will your book help your reader to understand or do? How will it change their lives or their perspective on life? Or will it give them a place to escape to for a few hours, a chance to forget their own troubles and lose themselves in the story of someone else’s life?
   
   

Start by coming up with at least 5 responses for each of these areas, and then pick the 10 responses that have the most juice for you—that have deep meaning for you and feel the most inspiring.

Here’s one of my top “reasons” for each of these five areas:

1. Why writing matters to me: I feel my happiest and most alive when inspiration is flowing through me.
2. Why I want to create a strong writing habit: The more often I write, the easier it will be to write when I want to and the better I’ll get at it—and I want to be GREAT!
3. What I want to share through my writing: I want to be a force for positivity in the world.
4. What my book(s) will give me: I want to make a living doing what I love.
5. What this book will give others: I want to help people fulfill their purpose and live their dreams, NOW! So that they don’t end up hiding their hearts and denying their dreams for DECADES, like I did.

Read your list often. The stronger (and more deeply felt) your reasons “why?” the more committed you'll feel and the easier it will be to keep your commitment.

 

3. Make writing a top priority

This may seem obvious, but don’t assume that because you love to write you’ve made writing a top priority.

      Here’s a test to find out whether you have or not:

• Do you write, no matter what?
• Do you write first, and let everything else come later?
• If you’re not inspired, do you sit down and write anyway?
• When something you’ve written is rejected, does that fuel you to do better and submit more?
• Do you do all of these on a consistent basis?

      The stronger your commitment, the easier it is to truly make writing a top priority and to live the above actions and attitudes as a way of life beyond the book you’re working on now or your participation in the 101 Day Book Writing Challenge. 

 

4. Write FIRST!

How often do you find yourself saying, “I’ll write as soon as I finish … (the dishes, my favorite TV show, organizing my desk, etc., etc., ad infinitum)” And how often does the day slip by without you doing any writing (or very little)?

There’s only one way to answer both of the above questions with “never,” (or at least “rarely”), and that is to Write First!

• Let the dishes sit in the sink for an hour… Write First!
• Record your favorite TV show… Write First!
• Let the piles of paper on your desk grow a little taller… Write First!

When you Write First! your world not only doesn’t fall apart, it usually goes better. It goes better because you feel good about yourself, and your writing. It goes better because things get done in the time you have. It’s one of those weird truisms that the less time you have to get something done, the more focused and productive you become. So, don’t be afraid to Write First!

 

5. Break your daily goal into smaller goals

The bigger your daily writing goal, the more likely you are to put it off.  While the smaller your daily writing goal, the more likely you are to get it done.

Think about it:

• It’s easier to squeeze a fifteen-minute writing session into a busy day than to find a free hour to write. Do this four times a day, and you’ve written for an hour.
• It’s easier to imagine writing two hundred and fifty words in one sitting than a thousand. Again, do this four times a day, and you’ve written a thousand words.
• It's easier to write a specific scene or subsection of your chapter to completion in one sitting than to write an entire chapter.

The smaller the goal, the less your resistance. The less your resistance, the more likely you are to actually do it. If this seems like a trick to get you to sit down and write, you’re right. It is. If your goal is to write daily, there’s no law that says it all has to be done in one sitting.

The beauty of this little trick is that it has lots of treats for you:

• The smaller your writing goal, the more easily you’ll complete it.
• Completing a writing goal makes you feel good, builds your confidence, and makes it more likely you’ll write again, soon. Lots of little completions skyrocket all these good feelings.
• Once you get started, you often write past your small amount of time or word count goal.
• Even one short writing session a day helps you build a daily writing habit, and the more days you write, the more you get written.

Small writing goals keep you writing consistently.

The more consistently you write, the more likely you are to grow your daily writing habit from 15 minutes to a half hour, and then on to an hour or more.