What is your writing ritual or schedule?

I'm feast or famine on writing long-form drama, Sheila. I have to pretty much completely put myself into That World I Thoughted Up, and I'll stay until the first draft is complete. Doing it piecemeal doesn't work for me. Not so far, anyway. I may have to alter my strategy because I have to work, full-time, just to survive. You know. Pretty much like all normal folks.

My writing is plot-thick, typically, and so I'll do a ton of research. I spend longer on research than I do on penning the first draft, whether it's a novel or a feature-length screenplay.

"A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper." - E.B. White

I used to think I needed perfect quiet in a room with a big oak desk looking out a window to some natural scene with my cup of green tea and all the time in the world. Hogwash.

Now all I need is my laptop and a few minutes. Sometimes it is in the morning, sometimes at lunch in the office, often at night on my couch after the kids have gone to bed. No set routine other than trying to get 500 words done every day.

SJSantiago said:

Sometimes my characters decide to go places without asking and I then have to plan their trip right then

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make sure you file a travel plan with their credit card company first otherwise the card may get denied at an important moment in the story.

I used to have a daily routine of writing 1250 words. After work, I would stop at a coffee shop or the library and dash off my daily words.

Work, however, has become very draining in the last few months. My department of 3 analysts is down to just me, and I'm going full burn all day long just to keep from falling too far behind. I can barely work up the energy to get home, make my family dinner, and fall into bed. I need to find a new routine that allows me to continue making progress in my writing.

Or a new job. I could just find a new job...

SJSantiago said:

I used to do that, all my research first, but then I realized I was losing the story. I decided to just get it all down and do research in my non-writing time and sometimes right in the middle of writing, say if I have to look up where the mountains are in a certain region my character is traveling in.

Sometimes my characters decide to go places without asking and I then have to plan their trip right then

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When I come across something like that while I'm supposed to be actually writing, I mark it in the text with curly brackets as something to research and move on.

Though, I did once submit a story to my crit group with {insert technical name here} in it. If you do something like that, make sure you find all the instances before calling the story done.

I never think in terms of words on the page because I can only write within the time I can find during the day. Specifically, for the hour or so when my wife reads to our boy, I head to the basement and try to write as much as I can before I need to come up and say my goodnights. I should add that my wife has been wonderfully supportive in what at times feels like a quixotic quest to write a book that might be published one day.

Spend all day fantasising about writing, maybe jot some notes, while I wait for chance to write. Go to bed defeated and exhausted.

Rinse repeat.

My writing ritual mostly consists of thinking it's pointless and then trying to force myself to think otherwise or else not to care. If I don't succeed at this last part then no writing ensues, so it's not much of a writing ritual. But it's a pretty regular routine nonetheless

For over 10 years I had a strict ONE HOUR MANDATORY WRITING TIME every single day. 4:30am-5:30am.

That is gone. I just spent over a year not writing. Well, I say not writing, but I wrote and had a play produced...as well as several articles published. But it's only really novel writing that I count. I did ZERO since last July. Practically. This July I wrote an entire novel...from July 17th to July 30th. 70,000k words.

Before I got those 70K words down, I thought I was no longer a writer. I totally convinced myself of this. I even had a name for my condition...

CRISIS OF HAPPINESS. The last approximately 2 years have been the happiest time of my life. I couldn't write though. I thought I had to be suicidal to write. Literally. As in...I was suicidal for a good 30 years of my life...and I wrote like a fiend.

I'm in a relationship with an amazing person and I repeatedly chose him over writing...until this July when I realized I could have both. He actually fueled my novel. He'd tell me he needed two chapters on his Kindle in the morning. So I would write them.

I don't have a writing time now. No schedule. I just write for my muse. This week I began another novel while I await my agent's feedback on the one I wrote in July. My muse said he wants two more chapters by supper time tonight. I need to get busy and write! He wants to know what will happen next. And frankly, so do I!

I don't really have a routine. When I see time during my day, I just go write something. I'm not incredibly productive, though. It takes some time to get into the groove. I wonder if having a routine would actually help that.

I've had insomnia for a long time, and a piece of advice I've often read is that you have to prime your body for bedtime by having an "unwinding" routine. Going to bed at the same time every night, doing the same ritual of tea, teeth brushing, hair combing, book reading (or whatever bedtime entails for you) is supposed to help you fall asleep faster.

I wonder if establishing an official routine with ritual and everything could prime you better for writing...

I write every day about two thousand words. In the evening I edit out about half. That way I can extend worthless conversations and scenarios knowing they can be cut right away and I get a chance to empty everything in my head. I sometimes take off in a completely different direction and let my writing take control of the keyboard. I end up dumping half of what I've written but sometimes I find paths and threads to follow that when I was more structureded I wouldn't waste my time on. I develop sub plots I hadn't planned on.

WriterDude said:

Spend all day fantasising about writing, maybe jot some notes, while I wait for chance to write. Go to bed defeated and exhausted.

Rinse repeat.

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This is like, the most depressing post I've read in a while.

I'm trying this thing where I write at the same time and place everyday. Place is key, I think. I noticed I'm conditioned to do certain things at certain parts of the house. If I sit down at the desktop I'm tempted to browse the internet. The living room is no-go because I immediately turn on the TV. Anywhere near the kitchen and I'm digging for food.
So right now I'm trying to retrain myself like one of Pavlov's dogs. I'm slowly cultivating a writing spot, where I sit down and think, "Oh yeah, writing. Where was I last time?"

This changes periodically, due to circumstances and frequent location changes on my part. For the last few months at least, my "writing ritual" goes something like this:

At around 9:00 PM, I crack open a beer and start "thinking about" writing. By "thinking about," I mean that I watch the news and try to put it off.
At around 9:20 or so, I actually open up the Word document, and make slight changes to the last paragraph I'd written.
At 9:40 or so, I finish my beer and go outside to smoke a cigarette. I grab another beer and head back to my room (repeat until about 11:00 PM).

Really interesting to hear about everyone's routines. I get to my office about 2 hours early, drink coffee until I'm at least sort of awake, and then I get down to it until 9 am, when I have to cease being a creative person and start impersonating a pragmatic one. On weekends I do a lot of the writing, wandering, cleaning, reading, rinse and repeat type of thing. That's actually my favorite way to work, wish the weekdays allowed for more time like that.